“What?”
Who was he setting the wedding date with?
How had she gone from watching the drama to becoming the main character in it?
Lin Xi was so amused that she almost laughed.
Li Yufen and Lin Jianguo, however, were furious!
Lin Jianguo slammed his palm onto the coffee table and stood up. “Kid, stop pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about!”
“Forget the whole spy nonsense. No matter how you spin it, you dishonored my daughter yesterday!”
“If you refuse to take responsibility, then we’ll go to the police station! And if it goes as far as a military court, let’s see whether your crime of hooliganism is enough to get you executed!”
“Heh.”
After hearing Lin Jianguo, Zhao Mingze not only didn’t get angry, but lowered his head and laughed.
“Uncle, if you don’t mind making this a bigger scandal and damaging your daughter-in-law-to-be’s reputation, I certainly don’t mind either. Your younger daughter is the one who seduced her sister’s fiancé, after all.”
He had clearly made up his mind to marry Lin Xi!
Li Yufen’s face instantly went pale, and even her breathing became unsteady.
“…What fiancé? You never gave us a betrothal gift, and we never got engaged. Stop talking nonsense.”
Zhao Mingze shrugged indifferently.
“Fine. If that’s how you want to put it, Aunt Fen, then I suppose we won’t reach an agreement today either.”
“Anyway, I’ve made my position clear. I’m only marrying Lin Xi. Once you’ve discussed it among yourselves, you can call me over anytime to formally discuss the marriage.”
With that, he put down the canned goods he was carrying and left.
The moment the door closed, Lin Ran anxiously stomped her feet.
“Mom, what are we going to do?”
After being given a second chance at life, she now had neither a husband’s family to back her up nor any money to rely on. Even her knowledge of the future was useless when the other party refused to cooperate.
She couldn’t understand it.
How had Zhao Mingze become as stubborn as a mule, insisting on Lin Xi?
What exactly did he see in Lin Xi?
Lin Jianguo had already planned everything out the night before. He had originally thought that since the deed was already done, everything would go smoothly today.
Who would have thought Zhao Mingze would turn out to be the kind of man who simply refused to care what happened, no matter how much boiling water was poured over him?
Li Yufen anxiously paced around.
“How would I know?”
Lin Jianguo only knew how to lose his temper, while Li Yufen only knew how to avoid problems.
Seeing that she couldn’t rely on her parents at all, Lin Ran grew frantic and loudly complained to Li Yufen.
“It’s all your fault! You were the one who insisted on marrying Lin Xi off to Zhao Mingze!”
Being blamed by her own daughter, Li Yufen felt utterly wronged.
“How was I supposed to know you would have a prophetic dream?”
Not only could Lin Ran not figure it out, Li Yufen couldn’t understand it either.
“Zhao Mingze has only met Lin Xi once. So how did he become completely bewitched by her and insist that he’ll only marry Lin Xi?”
He was even willing to risk offending his future father-in-law and resort to threats just to insist on marrying Lin Xi…
Lin Ran had been unable to figure it out, but when she heard Li Yufen say that, a thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
“I know!”
Lin Ran said, “Mom, Dad, think about it. Could Zhao Mingze be insisting on marrying Lin Xi because he thinks she’ll have a huge dowry?”
Li Yufen and Lin Jianguo exchanged a glance, neither confirming nor denying it.
After a while, Li Yufen hesitantly asked, “Xiaoran, didn’t you say Zhao Mingze would become a regimental commander in the future? Would he really care about such a small amount of money?”
Such a small amount of money…
The moment Lin Xi heard Li Yufen say that, she understood.
Lin Jianguo had apparently been hiding the true extent of the Lin family’s wealth even from the woman sleeping beside him.
Otherwise, how could the four entire boxes of valuables in her space possibly be dismissed as a mere trifle?
Li Yufen didn’t know how wealthy the Lin family actually was, but Lin Ran had been reborn, so she did.
Without exposing Lin Jianguo outright, Lin Ran smiled and took her mother’s hand.
“Mom, think about it. Is there anyone in this world who doesn’t love money?”
“Besides, didn’t you say Zhao Mingze is an orphan with no one to rely on? He worked his way up and finally secured his position as a battalion commander. Isn’t it perfectly reasonable for him to want a wife from a family of comparable standing?”
After hearing her daughter’s explanation, Li Yufen thought about it and felt that it made sense.
Mother and daughter sang the same tune.
Lin Jianguo finally understood what Lin Ran was getting at.
“So, Xiaoran, what exactly are you suggesting?”
Lin Ran took a deep breath.
“Dad, what I mean is, didn’t you already agree to let me manage everything in the family?”
“Why not just give it to me a few days early?”
The moment money was mentioned, Lin Jianguo’s expression darkened.
“No!”
“Why not?” Lin Ran demanded anxiously.
Lin Jianguo thought for a moment before finding an excuse.
“There’s your younger brother too. He’ll be up for a promotion in the army next year. We’ll need money to pull some strings, and he’ll need money to get married in the future.”
Lin Zihao was eighteen.
Lin Jianguo had always favored sons over daughters.
Thinking about her previous life, when Lin Jianguo had given her only five hundred yuan as her dowry, Lin Ran ground her teeth in resentment.
If Lin Zihao hadn’t been such a useless drunk who blurted out the truth whenever he got drunk, she would never have managed to get her hands on that much money.
Suppressing her grievance, Lin Ran took a deep breath.
“Dad, if you leave the money with me, I guarantee I can double it every year.”
“And you just said yourself that my brother needs to be promoted next year.”
“With Zhao Mingze’s help, forget about getting promoted. I can even have Mingze arrange for him to be transferred to a unit right under his command and look after him personally.”
Zhao Mingze was stationed on the border in Tibet.
The older couple had never intended to send their son to the frontier to suffer.
They exchanged a glance, still hesitant.
She couldn’t get Zhao Mingze to cooperate on the outside.
And her parents wouldn’t support her at home either.
Naturally, Lin Ran grew increasingly anxious.
She took a deep breath and threw out another bold promise.
“If you can’t bear to send my brother to suffer in Tibet, then I’ll have Zhao Mingze get him transferred back to a unit in the Beijing military district.”
Lin Jianguo didn’t believe a word of his daughter’s boast. He scoffed.
“Zhao Mingze is only a battalion commander. Does he have the authority to arrange an inter-military-district transfer just like that?”
Lin Ran glanced at her father.
Then she slowly reminded him, “Don’t forget. Although Zhao Mingze has no parents, he has the backing of his uncle’s family.”
Li Yufen and Zhao Mingze’s mother had come from the same village.
Li Yufen knew the Zhao family well. For generations, they had been ordinary farmers who simply kept their heads down and worked the land.
It was only in Zhao Mingze’s father’s generation that someone from the family became a soldier.
In those days, there was a war and the army was recruiting. The Zhao family could barely afford to eat, so they sent Zhao Mingze’s father.
He had only been fifteen at the time. He survived the battlefield by sheer luck.
Later, General Xiao took notice of him and personally assigned him to serve beside his eldest son, Xiao Hekuan, as his aide.
He stayed in that position for ten years.
Because of that, the entire Zhao family was able to move to Beijing.
Just when everyone thought better days were finally coming, Zhao Mingze’s father died during a mission.
The family’s only source of support was suddenly gone. Unable to bear the blow, Zhao Mingze’s mother swallowed pills and followed her husband in death before his funeral had even been completed.
Overnight, the only person left in the family was nine-year-old Zhao Mingze.
Zhao Mingze’s father had three brothers, and each family had several children of their own. When his father had been doing well, they hadn’t benefited much from him.
Now that he was dead, they were expected to raise his child?
Impossible.
Their own families could barely put food on the table. Who had the time to worry about someone else’s child?
In the end, General Xiao and Xiao Hekuan couldn’t bear to see the situation and brought Zhao Mingze back to the Xiao family.
To outsiders, they simply said he was the orphan of a fallen comrade and had the boy acknowledge General Xiao as his grandfather.
Only after Lin Ran reminded her did Li Yufen suddenly remember.
She slapped her thigh.
“That’s right! Old Lin!”
“Our Xiaoran isn’t just marrying Zhao Mingze himself!”
Zhao Mingze had entered the Xiao family at the age of nine. After more than a decade, the Xiao family had surely long since treated him like one of their own.
Otherwise, would his uncle from the Xiao family have taken Zhao Mingze along on every mission he went on?
A twenty-year-old battalion commander—Li Yufen refused to believe the Xiao family hadn’t pulled some strings behind the scenes!
Li Yufen hooked her arm through Lin Jianguo’s and lowered her voice.
“Old Lin, think about it. Behind Zhao Mingze is the entire Xiao family—and General Xiao himself! A great figure whom most people could go their entire lives without ever meeting!”