The next day, on Renmin Road, at a café.
Yang Zhiyan had delivered a custom qipao nearby the previous week and had stopped in for a cup of coffee. It had been ridiculously expensive—painfully so.
The café sat midway along Renmin Road. A row of floor-to-ceiling windows looked out onto the street, with brown leather sofas arranged inside. The neighborhood was frequented by affluent professionals, so everything sold here carried a distinctly upscale price tag.
She hadn’t wanted to come.
But seeing the troubled look on her mother’s face, she relented. She would treat it as doing her relatives a favor.
Meet him once, then go home and say there was no chemistry.
The glass door was polished so clean it reflected her image. She glanced at herself: a modernized qipao, her hair loosely pinned up with a wooden hairpin, no makeup on her face, yet her natural beauty was impossible to hide.
She pushed open the door.
A blast of cool air mixed with the rich aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans greeted her.
The café was spacious, furnished with brown leather booths and warm amber lighting. Only a handful of customers sat scattered around.
She looked around but didn’t see anyone wearing a blue suit.
Instead, a man sat diagonally across from her by the window. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. A glass of water sat untouched before him as he looked down at his phone. The overhead lights accentuated the sharp lines of his profile.
Yang Zhiyan’s gaze lingered on him for only a second before quickly looking away.
He was incredibly handsome.
But she didn’t dare stare.
The aura he carried was simply too intimidating.
It was the kind of commanding presence possessed by someone long accustomed to holding authority, making people instinctively avoid meeting his eyes.
She withdrew her gaze, chose a seat near the entrance, placed her handbag on the chair beside her, and waited.
They were supposed to meet at three o’clock.
It was already 3:10, yet no one had arrived.
She picked up the glass of water and took a sip, deciding she’d wait another five minutes before leaving.
She had shown up. If the other party didn’t, she’d simply tell her sister-in-law exactly that. It wouldn’t be her fault.
At 3:12, the café door opened.
Yang Zhiyan looked up instinctively.
A man walked in.
The top of his head was noticeably balding, with several wisps of hair painstakingly combed from the left side over to the right in a futile attempt to cover the shiny patch of scalp.
His facial features were complete enough, but his skin was greasy, especially around the sides of his nose. The blue suit he wore was clearly too large across the shoulders, as though he’d borrowed it from someone else.
Yang Zhiyan froze.
She lowered her eyes to the photo her sister-in-law had sent her.
The man in the picture wasn’t exactly handsome, but at least he had hair, and his face wasn’t nearly this oily. He looked… normal.
There was no way this was the same person.
The balding man had already walked over to her. His eyes openly swept over her from head to toe before settling on her face. He broke into a grin.
His teeth were slightly yellow.
“Hello.”
His voice carried an affected steadiness, as though he were imitating the tone of a government official on television.
Yang Zhiyan stood and gave a polite nod.
“Hello.”
After hesitating for a moment, she asked, “Have you mistaken me for someone else?”
The man’s smile stiffened briefly before recovering.
Lifting his chin slightly, he replied condescendingly, “You’re Yang Zhiyan, right? Your sister-in-law showed me your picture.”
She remained silent.
“I have to say,” Zhou Yuanzhi said as he pulled out a chair and sat down, crossing one leg over the other while shaking his foot, “you’re even prettier than in the photo.”
Yang Zhiyan looked at him for two seconds before sitting down slowly.
She still couldn’t reconcile the greasy, balding man before her with the man in the photograph.
Unable to hold back, she finally asked, “You… don’t really look like your picture.”
Zhou Yuanzhi laughed, wearing an expression that said you just don’t get it. He confidently reached up and patted the few strands of hair covering his bald spot.
“Everyone uses flattering photos. In real life, I’m definitely more handsome.”
At least the guy in the picture still had hair, Yang Zhiyan thought.
She took another sip of water to suppress the countless thoughts running through her mind.
Forget it. Sit here for ten minutes, then leave.
Just go through the motions and report back.
Zhou Yuanzhi glanced at his watch. The dial was large with a shiny gold-colored rim, though it didn’t look like real gold.
“I have to go back to work overtime later, so let’s get straight to the point.”
His smile disappeared as he sat up straighter, folded his hands on the table, and adopted the posture of someone negotiating serious business.
“Marry me. After we’re married, I’ll support you. You won’t have to work at all. Just take good care of my mother.”
Yang Zhiyan set down her glass but said nothing.
“And one more thing,” Zhou Yuanzhi continued solemnly.
“You have to bear me sons.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Sons?”
“That’s right.”
He held up three fingers.
“At least three sons.”
Yang Zhiyan stared at him.
He wasn’t joking.
Soft jazz drifted through the café, the saxophone lazy and intimate.
She sat there, momentarily speechless.
What era is this?
He not only demanded sons, but specifically three of them.
Could he even afford to raise three children?
She couldn’t help thinking of her own father.
He’d been exactly the same.
He had insisted on having a son. Even after her older brother was born, he wasn’t satisfied and wanted another child. Instead, the second baby turned out to be a daughter.
Her father often called her a “money-losing burden.”
No matter how hard she worked or how well she did, in her parents’ eyes she would never compare to their useless son.
When her brother scored sixty on an exam, her father would beam with pride.
“My son’s amazing! Extra chicken drumstick for dinner tonight!”
When she scored a perfect hundred…
“A girl doesn’t need to study so much.”
How ridiculous.
“Does your family have a throne that needs inheriting?” Yang Zhiyan asked.
Her tone sounded joking, but the sarcasm beneath it was unmistakable.
Zhou Yuanzhi either failed to catch it or simply didn’t care.
Instead, he grew even more serious and lowered his voice.
“Look, I’m already a civil servant. A civil servant today is the equivalent of an official in ancient times. Naturally, an official needs sons to carry on the family line. Otherwise, what’s the point of being an official?”
Yang Zhiyan opened her mouth to respond but swallowed the words.
Zhou Yuanzhi continued, becoming increasingly enthusiastic.
“My mother even had my fortune told. The master said I’m destined to have three sons in this lifetime. So don’t worry.”
He looked at Yang Zhiyan with the magnanimous air of someone bestowing a favor.
“You’re just a qipao maker. There’s quite a gap between our social standing. But you’re pretty enough, so our sons should turn out well. You don’t need to worry about not being able to give birth to boys.”
That was the last straw.
Yang Zhiyan placed her half-finished glass of water on the table, looked up at his shiny, grease-covered face, and nearly lost her lunch.
“That’s unfortunate.”
“A fortune teller told me I’m not fated to have sons.”
“I can only give birth to daughters.”
Zhou Yuanzhi looked as though someone had grabbed him by the throat.
His mouth hung open.
He remained frozen for several seconds before the smile slowly disappeared from his face.
Straightening up, he stared at her as though she had deeply offended him.
“That won’t do.”
His tone completely changed.
The previous generosity and condescension vanished, replaced by the righteous indignation of someone who felt cheated.
“I’m already a government official, while you’re just a seamstress. There was a huge gap between us to begin with. If we weren’t relatives by connection, and if you weren’t so pretty, I never would’ve agreed to this match.”
He stood, straightened the oversized blue suit jacket on his shoulders, and lifted his chin even higher.
“But you can’t bear sons?”
“No, absolutely not.”
He picked up the Americano the waiter had just served—without even taking a sip—then turned to leave.
After taking two steps, he stopped and looked back.
“You can pay for the coffee. I’ve got something to do.”
Then he walked out.
The door opened and closed behind him.
The wind chime above it jingled softly.
Yang Zhiyan sat alone in the booth, staring at the latte on the table.
Then she called over a waitress.
“Could you pack this to go, please?”
It would be such a waste otherwise.
It had cost fifty-eight yuan a cup.
When it came time to pay, Yang Zhiyan looked at the total on the register—
116 yuan.
Her heart bled.
She only had three thousand yuan left each month.
She didn’t have to pay rent because she lived with her family, but every month she had to contribute five thousand yuan toward household expenses—more than renting a place would have cost.
Her brother’s salary was almost entirely consumed by the mortgage, and the family’s food and daily expenses all depended on the five thousand yuan she handed over every month.
On the fifteenth of every month, the day salaries were paid, her mother would call punctually.
Her tone was always gentle, but the meaning was unmistakable.
“Yanyan, have you gotten paid yet?”