Heavenly Match - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Life had become shamelessly sweet. On the day of the holiday, Yun Chu got up early to pick up his mother from the airport. After finishing my breakfast, I headed out for a stroll.

A middle-aged woman dressed in expensive clothes was standing at the entrance of the villa complex, arguing with the security guard.

“Don’t you have eyes? Do I look like some random loiterer? Look at my clothes-do you even recognize quality? Where is your manager? I want to see the manager…” She waved her arms excitedly.

“Ma’am, without notification from a resident, we cannot let people in on our own authority,” the guard said, looking troubled.

I watched for a moment before waving my hand to get their attention before the guard could call the police. “She’s with me.”

The woman cursed at him a few more times, then came over and hooked her arm through mine as if we were old friends. “Young lady, you’re a good person. I like gentle, kind-hearted girls like you. Tell me, do I look like a bad person?”

“Why didn’t you contact your son?” I asked, glancing at her.

“I can’t contact him,” she said with resentment. “I sent my son away on an errand. He’s keeping a vixen in that house, and I have to get in there first to see what kind of fox spirit she is to have him so bewitched.”

“A vixen, huh…”

“If she isn’t a vixen, what is she?” She slapped her thigh. “They’d never even met before, yet only a week after getting married, he dares to talk back to me for her sake, hangs up on me, and even abandoned his childhood sweetheart who has always loved him. What kind of person could do such a thing…”

“I really wouldn’t know. You should ask him,” I said helplessly, detaching myself from her. As I reached my front door, I scanned my fingerprint to open it and turned back to wait for her.

“You… You are…” She stared at me, speechless.

I nodded. “I am.”

She froze for a second, then walked in with stiff, mechanical steps. Her movements became incredibly restrained, and her head was bowed. “Hi… Why are you like this…”

“I’m sorry you had to see that side of me,” I said calmly, pointing toward the sofa. “Please, have a seat.”

“Okay… okay…”

I pushed a fruit platter toward her. “Please, help yourself.”

“I… I’ll help myself.”

The oven timer went off. I got up to retrieve a fresh batch of cookies, filling the room with the scent of cream.

I brought them over for her to try. She ate two pieces with hesitant, awkward movements, her expression pained.

I brewed a cup of tea and pushed it toward her with a smile. “It might be a bit hot. Yun Chu said you’d arrive at ten, so I timed the baking a bit late.”

She stared blankly at the teacup as two streams of tears fell without warning.

“I’m sorry…”

Hearing her apologize made me feel a bit flustered. “It’s alright. I can forgive you…”

“I’m sorry, Rou Rou,” she suddenly wailed. “Godmother has failed you! This woman is too skilled-even I’ve been won over by her! Waaaah, who’s going to help you now?”

I leaned back and crossed my arms.

She grabbed tissues and wiped her face haphazardly, sobbing uncontrollably. “You don’t know… I watched her grow up. She was so cute, worked so hard in school, and always called me ‘Godmother’ with such a sweet voice. I waited so long for them to grow up-they were such a perfect match. I wanted them to be together so badly. I always thought they would be…”

The tissues ran out. She tried to sniffle back her tears, and I couldn’t bear it anymore, so I grabbed a new box from the cabinet and handed it to her.

“I think I understand you a little now.” She took the tissues, but I didn’t let go of the box yet. “When a ‘ship’ you’ve supported for over a decade suddenly sinks, it’s hard for anyone to accept.”

She looked up at me with teary eyes. I said mildly, “But there’s nothing that can be done. It’s already happened. Life doesn’t have a screenwriter; you can’t hold a knife to someone’s throat to make them change the plot.”

Once she had cried her fill, she gradually calmed down, though she still hiccuped occasionally. “Yue Chu, actually, you’re quite nice too.”

I nodded, agreeing with her assessment.

“But Rou Rou is coming.” She hesitantly pulled out her phone. “I lied to Yun Chu and told him to pick me up at the airport, but Rou Rou is actually the one there. My plan was to get here first and kick you out.”

“…” I honestly didn’t know what to say. “Well then… the more the merrier?”

The phone rang in her hand. Speak of the devil-it was Bai Rou.

His mother hesitantly answered. The woman’s crying and screaming on the other end was loud enough to vibrate through the speaker: “Godmother! He… he rolled the window down just a crack, threw a hundred-yuan bill out, and told me to take a taxi!”

Yun Chu’s mother covered her face and wept.

“Then you… just take a taxi. Godmother has failed you, Rou Rou!”

She hung up and continued crying. “Yue Chu, I’ve failed you too! How did I raise such a scumbag? He’s so cold-hearted-he’ll bully you in the future too, waaaah…”

“It’s not that bad.” I pulled up the tragic family drama I had been watching. “I have even bigger scumbags on screen here. Do you want to watch?”

The two of us sat there watching the show and cursing at the fictional scumbags until Yun Chu returned.

He walked in looking a bit travel-worn but with a bright, clear smile. “Mom, you’re already here. No wonder I didn’t see you at the airport.”

“Uh…” His mother’s eyes shifted guiltily.

His eyes narrowed into a slight smile. “Mom, who are you looking for? Isn’t your daughter-in-law sitting right here?”

He strode over to me, suddenly leaning down to cup my face and kiss me. “Don’t be afraid, Wifey. I’m back. No one is allowed to bully you.”

“Uh…”

Rather pointedly, he kept piling food onto my plate, tucking my hair behind my ear, and feeding me a few bites. As we ate, he added, “Chuchu, that movie we talked about is out. Let’s go see it this afternoon.”

I suddenly remembered something. “Um, I just bought the tickets. Two of them…”

“We really are of one mind.” He looked at me with eyes full of affection.

“…I forgot to buy yours,” I said, awkwardly picking at my chopsticks.

“Huh?”

My mother-in-law set her bowl down with an expression that said she’d lost her appetite. She waved a hand wearily. “Forget it, you two go. I won’t play the third wheel… Just live your lives well from now on.”

After she left, Yun Chu looked stunned. “You two…”

“I told you we wouldn’t fight.”

Hearing this made him even more nervous. Ignoring my protests, he checked me over thoroughly. Only after confirming there were no injuries did he let out a long sigh of relief.

“My mother is a stubborn and impulsive person,” he began slowly, sitting down to drink some tea and calm his nerves. “She had her own ideas about my marriage. We talked on the phone for five hours before and couldn’t reach an agreement. She even threatened to beat me into amnesia so I’d start over…”

“She was just scaring you. Even a tiger doesn’t eat its cubs.”

“That’s true.” He nodded, still a bit shaken, his gaze drifting toward the wall with a touch of sympathy. “She only scolds me. My father hasn’t slept in a bed for a month.”

“That’s a bit tragic.”

The more he spoke, the more he seemed to find a twisted sort of amusement in it. “The most tragic time was during their honeymoon. On a whim, she decided she wanted to trek through the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon. My father didn’t dare go, so he was left alone in the tent while she walked a long way away, crying.”

“She has quite a strong personality.”

“To be able to change the mind of someone that stubborn, my Wifey is truly impressive.” He took my hand, the corners of his eyes crinkling with emotion. “I knew my Wifey was gentle, generous, and understanding, and that she would definitely like you once she saw you. I just didn’t expect you to be this amazing. How did you do it?”

I thought back and summarized my technique: “I didn’t do anything.”

He stared at me and laughed for a good while, his eyes shimmering with a warm glow. “Speaking of which, I still owe you a honeymoon.”

I waved my hands dismissively. “Work is more important. Work comes first.”

“Once I arrange my current affairs, I’ll take you immediately.” He reached out to ruffle the hair on top of my head and dropped a light kiss on my forehead. Then he joked, “You won’t leave me halfway and run off to trek through the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, right?”

“I don’t have that kind of stamina yet,” I joked back.

He held me contentedly for a moment of tenderness. Then, his phone screen lit up. I reached over to grab it; it was a friend request from my mother-in-law.

I accepted it, and she sent over some roses and smiley faces.

She sent a voice message: “Daughter-in-law, I thought about it after I got back. I think we really hit it off. Let’s let whatever misunderstandings we had in the past stay in the past.”

Yun Chu kissed my ear.

I replied, “Okay, Mom.”

Another long, rambling voice message came through: “Sigh, you have no idea what kind of man your father-in-law is. He can sleep on a sofa and make it collapse. I’m making him sleep on the floor now, and he’s making excuses about the dampness and having arthritis. I said, ‘What about the fur on your knees then?’ and he said, ‘I’m not a dog, where would I get fur?’ and I said, ‘So you know you’re not a dog…'”

Yun Chu chuckled and smugly pulled me closer.

Mother-in-law continued: “If he wants to sleep in the bed, then I’ll just give the bed to him. I’m not staying at home anymore; I’m going out to have some fun. Do you want to come with me? Come with me! I know how to have a good time. I’ll take you through the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon.”

Yun Chu froze.

“I…”

“Wifey…? You won’t agree, right? Wifey? Wifey-!”

In the end, I just replied with, “I want to spend more time getting to know my husband, maybe next time,” and did nothing else. My husband became even clingier, acting as if he couldn’t bear to be away from me.

He insisted on being fed every time he ate a cookie-it was honestly a bit gross. When we went out, he’d take up both lanes on the sidewalk, blocking traffic. In the movie theater, he kept leaning in to whisper, which eventually annoyed the guy in the row behind us so much that he left. That night, he even dragged me to the tallest building in the city to book a penthouse suite, saying he wanted to find some thrills higher than a highland canyon.

Sigh.

Not everything can be solved smoothly by doing nothing.

When the bright moon rose, Yun Chu’s phone kept ringing on the bed. I picked it up for him.

“I am Yun Chu’s wife. If there’s something, you can tell me.”

There was a brief silence on the other end, followed by a feminine, mocking laugh. “What a coincidence. I’m Bai Rou. Didn’t expect that, did you?”

“Oh.” I really hadn’t. “Did you get a taxi home?”

“Shut up!” Her voice cracked. “If it weren’t for you, how could Yun Chu treat me like this! This isn’t over. You just wait!”

I was shocked. “Every debt has its debtor. Yun Chu is the one who wronged you, so you should take it up with him. Why are you coming after me?”

I glanced at the bathroom and patiently tried to persuade her. “Wait a second, he’s in the shower. I’ll have him call you back when he gets out.”

“Stop acting so high and mighty! Don’t get happy too soon. I won’t let you off-I won’t let you off even as a ghost!”

She screamed hysterically for a bit and then hung up on me.