Chapter 32:
Wedding
SHEN QINGQIU WALKED for a few steps, waving his fan, before he discovered that the person who had been clinging so tightly to him this whole time hadn’t come along. He turned around to see Luo Binghe standing in place, staring at something in a state of distraction.
Curious, Shen Qingqiu asked, “Binghe? What are you looking at?”
Only at this did Luo Binghe snap out of it. “Shizun, I…”
Shen Qingqiu was even more curious now. He walked back and looked in the same direction Luo Binghe was staring only to see a lively crowd gathered before a moderately sized residence as they surrounded a couple of crimson-clad newlyweds whose faces were obscured. At present, the rowdy gathering was moving into the courtyard.
The street was loud in the first place, so he hadn’t noticed that a couple was holding a wedding right in front of them.
Two young maids were standing at the gates, handing out wedding candy from the baskets on their arms to passersby. In crisp voices, they called, “Spreading good fortune! Spreading good fortune!”
Shen Qingqiu’s first thought was classic wet blanket. “Has this family been beset by some evil creature or ghost?”
But no matter how he looked, he couldn’t find anything strange. Just as he was about to ask, he saw Luo Binghe walk over on his own. The young maids had never seen a handsome man of his caliber, and both were struck dumb as soon as they looked up, forgetting to even hand over their candy. Luo Binghe ended up taking it from their hands himself with serene poise.
After acquiring their wedding candy, Luo Binghe returned to Shen Qingqiu’s side, satisfied. “Shizun, let’s go.”
Shen Qingqiu nodded.
The two of them walked for a while, shoulder to shoulder. Luo Binghe was still playing with those two round wedding candies wrapped in red paper, and he took another look back at that festively decorated residence with its streams of people flowing in and out. He still seemed to be thinking about something.
“Is there something up with that residence?” Shen Qingqiu asked.
Luo Binghe started. “What does Shizun mean by ‘something up with it’?”
“If there was nothing up with it, why would you pay it so much attention? You don’t even like candy.”
A look of understanding came over Luo Binghe’s face, and he smiled. “It’s nothing; just sharing in the good fortune.”
He was so earnest when he spoke that Shen Qingqiu couldn’t help but smile. “This master doesn’t recall you believing in such things. Have you never seen anyone get married before?”
“It’s not that I haven’t seen it, I just never imagined that sort of thing could have anything to do with myself.”
“You never imagined marrying a girl in the future?”
Luo Binghe shook his head.
Shen Qingqiu felt this was rather unscientific. “Really? Not even a bit?”
No matter how you put it, Luo Binghe—the former Luo Binghe, that was—was the male protagonist of a stallion novel. How could he never have nursed any beautiful hopes of that kind? And, with Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky’s shitty tendencies, his “beautiful hopes” would hardly have stopped at marrying a beautiful woman. They would have been more like marrying a three-digit number of beautiful women all at once, at minimum.
Of course, Shen Qingqiu knew the current Luo Binghe wouldn’t do such a thing. But how could he never even have thought about it? How could he have thought that marriage had nothing to do with him?
Luo Binghe thought, then said, “I truly never imagined it before.”
Shen Qingqiu noticed that before. “So you mean to say, you think such things have something to do with you now?” he teased.
Unexpectedly, this time Luo Binghe didn’t reply.