At a luxurious restaurant’s rooftop,
“…the first step is completed. I have met your family.” Yu Yang looked at Li Yeli.
“on Saturday I’ll take you to meet mine.”
“Hm.” She responded, wondering if this could really be considered as meeting her family.
They barely talked for even half an hour.
Yu Yang cleared his throat, “But…”
Li Yeli looked up at him.
Why is there a ‘but’?
Seeing her reaction Yu Yang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
He continued, “…There is something you have to do.”
“What?” She asked.
“Do you know how to act?” He asked.
Li Yeli was stupefied, “Huh?”
“To get my family’s approval, you have to make them believe… that you love me.”
Yu Yang said that for his personal interest.
Even if his grandmother does not approve of their marriage, he will still carry on.
But Li Yeli didn’t know that.
He was looking forward to how Li Yeli would act lovingly in front of his family.
Li Yeli speechlessly stared at him.
“…I can’t…do that. Can’t we just explain to them it’s a contract marriage and we don’t even love each other?”
Afterall they will separate after a year what’s the point of lying to the family.
“No.” Yu Yang shook his head.
“That would be the last thing you would ever want to do. You have to lie to them. If you want to marry me, you have to get their approval, to get their approval, you have to convince them that you really love me.”
“Uh…”
She stared at him, “How do I—”
“Simple. We just have to act intimately, and you have to answer my Grandmother’s question flawlessly, make her believe that you love me. If Grandmother is convinced, the whole family is.” They literally have no say if she desides something.
But that doesn’t mean she could decide for him.
“…Intimately…?”
“Ah, for example: call me Yang, darling, dearest, love, we can casually hold hands—”
Li Yeli squeezed her face.
“There is no way I’m doing any of those.”
“Why?”
“Your grandmother will find out it’s a lie. Because I suck at acting.”
Yu Yang nodded, “True…”
He remembered clearly, how bad she was at pretending.
“But I’ll try.” She cleared her throat.
“Yang, My love.” She said robotically, her face lacking every positive expression.
An expression that could make a clown give up.
“Please. Miss Li. Stop.”
Li Yeli’s expression faltered, “Don’t call me that.”
“Mrs. Yu.”
She stared at him, “That is even much worse. We are not married yet.”
Li Yeli’s expression seemed to have change slightly after she spoke.
They might never even get married, which family except hers would be willing to let their child marry a person that doesn’t love them?
“Do not worry, as Linda said: You’re unfriendly but amiable. My grandmother would definitely like you.?”
Afterall, they always had a very close relationship, if Madam Yu’s eyes can lie to her, her heart wont.
Li Yeli stared at him without saying anything.
Yu Yang stared back at her, then noticed that ever since they came in, she has not touched the food in front of her at all.
“Do you not like the food?” He finally asked.
“Hm?” Li Yeli, deep in her thoughts finally snapped back to life.
“The food.”
Li Yeli looked down at the dish in front of her, a design she had never seen, a color of food she never knew existed. Find the original chapter at g.com.
She had never fed on something like this before, so it looked weird to her.
She had seen many dishes from the cook books Ah-ma got her but she didn’t recognise this one.
“???”
Yu Yang was baffled by the way she was staring at the food, it seemed like she was confused.
Which made him also confused.
“Have you never had it before?” He asked.
“No.”
“Ok…then what do you want to eat?”
“Oat.”
“Sorry what?” Yu Yang was slightly surprised.
Out of all the food in the world, oat was the last thing he could ever think of.
Li Yeli stared at him.
“Why…oat?” Yu Yang asked.
“It’s the only food they feed me, so it’s the only food I’m used to.”
The words Li Yeli said were simple, spoken in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, yet they struck Yu Yang harder than any accusation ever could.
A sharp pain pierced his chest, spreading through his entire body.
His hand slowly curled into a tight fist at his side as an unfamiliar feeling of helplessness washed over him.
For how long had she lived like this?
How many years had she been eating the same meals, not because she liked them, but because no one had ever cared enough to ask what she wanted?
Yu Yang lowered his gaze.
For the first time, the food on the table looked unbearably plain.
“Used to it…” he repeated quietly, almost to himself.
The words lingered in the air, heavy and suffocating.
His jaw clenched as he fought to suppress the anger rising within him.