Chapter 19.1

Substitute Marriage (5) – “The newlyweds are giving out wedding candy, can I eat one too?” (1)

The gongs and drums were loud and the firecrackers were blaring.

After a night, the welcoming team to escort the bride to the groom arrived in front of the inn early.

Li Ruo Shui’s eyes were dull and she was yawning. She was dragged by the matchmakers and dressed up all night and now she was so sleepy that she could fall asleep sitting.

She didn’t really care about the marriage, she just wanted to find the fire grass before the middle of the month and get rid of the poison first.

The matchmaker in front of her put on lipstick for her lips and her eyes suddenly lit up when she looked at her.

Almond eyes, high nose and smooth skin. The most remarkable thing was her eyes, which seemed as if they could speak and were so full of vitality that anyone who looked at them could not help but feel happy and relaxed.

“Miss Li, you are really beautiful. I haven’t seen such a vibrant person like you in a long time.”

Li Ruo Shui’s eyelids drooped. She didn’t know how she could see the vibrant aura from her exhaustion, so she just nodded her head.

With her make-up finally done, Li Ruo Shui braced herself from the exhaustion and dragged her long wedding dress behind the door, from where she pulled out a plain style blind stick.

“Lu Zhi Yao, catch it.”

Lu Zhi Yao was sitting on the windowsill, playing with a nine-linked ring in his hand.

After hearing Li Ruo Shui’s voice, he raised his hand to catch the flying object and touched it with his hand.

“What is this?”

“It’s a blind stick. I asked Sister Lu to buy it. You have to use this when you’re acting alone.”

Li Ruo Shui made a point of emphasising “alone”, wanting to remind him of the fact that she would not be around later.

Lu Zhi Yao ruffled the hair that had blown to the corner of his lips and pursed a smile, “Thank you.”

He didn’t notice the accent in her tone at all……

Forget about it, how could it be easy. She had to find a chance to use the system rewards and get to know him a bit more.

“Can I go now?”

The matchmaker smiled as she covered her head, helped her open the door, and slowly descended the stairs to the entrance of the inn.

“The bride has arrived!”

Many people had gathered around, chattering and clamouring, either asking for red envelopes or eating melons and spectating the ceremony.

Li Ruo Shui looked from under the headcover and saw that there were many people around, with a few children occasionally poking their heads in to see the bride from underneath.

Li Ruo Shui met the eyes of a little girl with pigtails, smiled and winked at her, and the little girl covered her mouth and ran away.

As the two matchmakers spoke auspicious words along the way, the servants around them scattered the wedding money, and Li Ruo Shui was helped to the front of the palanquin.

When she entered, a piece of white robe seemed to flash through the corner of her eye.

“Rise the palanquin.”

The welcoming team blew and clanged as they made their way from the inn to the Zheng Mansion. All along the way, the copper plates tinkled and trumpets and suonas were in full force, making Li Ruo Shui drowsy.

Of course, she didn’t make things difficult for herself, as she fell into deep sleep in no time, as if she wanted to make up for all the sleep she had missed from staying up late.

*

“The auspicious time is perfect, and the couples are in pairs. Will the groom please invite the bride?”

The matchmaker shouted out, and Zheng Yan Qing, the second son of the Zheng family, walked out.

Even in his bright red wedding clothes, he still looked bad, making him even paler and weaker.

Zheng Yan Qing covered his mouth and coughed a few times before slowly walking towards the palanquin.

“According to the rituals, the groom has to carry Li Ruo Shui on his back. Is this Young Master Zheng up to it?”

Jiang Nian and Lu Fei Yue were standing on the roof not far away. Jiang Nian looked at Zheng Yan Qing’s feeble steps and had some doubts.

“I don’t know.” Lu Fei Yue shook her head, “Have you seen Lu Zhi Yao?”

According to that day at the broken temple, Li Ruo Shui probably had her heart set on Lu Zhi Yao, but this time she had married into the Zheng Mansion for them.

Even if it was a false intention, she didn’t want to hurt their feelings because of this.

Jiang Nian pulled Lu Fei Yue to his place and pointed to the side of the sedan chair.

“There, he has always been following.”

The palanquin blocked Lu Zhi Yao completely from that viewpoint, and it was only when Lu Fei Yue changed to this side that she saw the whiteness.

She hesitated for a moment and looked closely at Lu Zhi Yao’s expression, “He seems to be enjoying himself.”

Jiang Nian nodded and let out a long sigh, “It’s over now, Lu Zhi Yao doesn’t like her at all, and Li Ruo Shui’s unrequited love will have to end in vain.”

Who in the world could watch the person he likes get married to another person?

Even he himself was so jealous that he was about to explode when he first heard that Lu Fei Yue’s mission was to marry into the Zheng Mansion.

Zheng Yan Qing had already walked up to the door of the palanquin and reached out his hand to knock, signalling for the bride to come out, but after waiting for a while, there was no movement inside the palanquin.

He waited for a while, then raised his hand and knocked again.

The crowd around the palanquin slowly lowered their voices and looked around to see what was happening, and some even speculated that the bride had escaped from the marriage.

Amidst the puzzled faces of the crowd, only Lu Zhi Yao closed his lips and smiled softly.

He heard the long breathing from inside the palanquin and knew that Li Ruo Shui was asleep.

As Zheng Yan Qing raised his hand to knock on the door again, he picked up a wedding candy at his feet and flipped it in, hitting Li Ruo Shui’s forehead with a bang.

The hit was not heavy, but Li Ruo Shui was awakened by the hit.

She opened her eyes and was stunned for a moment as she looked at the red colour, then remembered that she was in a palanquin and was about to get married.

The palanquin door rang three times and she remembered what the two matchmakers had said. After yawning, she stretched out her hand to lift the palanquin curtain and took the red wedding silk from the man’s hand.

It was only then that the surrounding spectators stopped whispering and began to talk aloud.

“This Young Master Zheng is really not bad, good-looking and talented. If it weren’t for the evil deed, those who wanted to marry him would have had to break the threshold of the Zheng family.”

“Right.”

As the two were talking with a sense of pity, a man in white ahead of them turned his head and asked with a warm smile.

“Is Young Master Zheng very good-looking?”

The two men saw his closed eyes and the blind stick in his hand, looked at each other with understanding and nodded their heads.

“Young Master Zheng is one of the best men in Cangzhou in terms of looks.”

Lu Zhi Yao raised his eyebrows slightly and his curled lips flattened a little: “How does that compare to me?”

There are also many men who love to compare their looks, so these two men were not surprised, but looked at him carefully.

“In terms of appearance, you are indeed much better than Young Master Zheng.”

Lu Zhi Yao’s eyebrows relaxed and the corners of his lips curled slightly.

“But it’s hard to say who looks better. If I have to draw a comparison, you are like a flower, soft and beautiful, but Young Master Zheng is like a bamboo, clear and straight. It’s difficult to compare when both are different.”

“Yeah, if I were a woman, I would find someone like Young Master Zheng better looking……Don’t be angry, Young Master, of course you are good-looking too.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lu Zhi Yao’s smile didn’t change much, and by the time the people from the Zheng Mansion announced to enter the door, he followed the stream of people into the Zheng Mansion with his blind stick.

Except for the mistake during the knocking of the palanquin door, the wedding went smoothly. It didn’t take long for the worship of heaven and earth to be over, and it was time to uncover the head cover and hand out the wedding candy.