BXBX NOVEL Chapter 17
“Satisfied?” Mo Nianchen asked candidly.
“Great value for quality,” she said with a smile. She did feel like something was amiss, so she tricked Gina into going in there to see if it was true. Seeing as she spent so long in there, the promotion was probably true. There was no reason to assume there was a promotion specifically made to cater to her only.
She still could not put a finger into it, what exactly felt amiss?
She seemed to have suddenly recalled something and asked, “Are you the only one who knows about the promotion in this store?”
His hand on the steering wheel halted for a moment, “What makes you say that?”
“I just think it’s strange for me to run into such a great deal.”
“And that’s why people like you should never even hope to win the lottery,” the corner of Mo Nianchen’s lip twitched. They did a pretty good job.
“Of course. I never buy lottery tickets, why would I ever hit the jackpot.”
“…”
“Back to the topic. How did you know about the promotion in that store?”
“I know what I want to know, isn’t that simple?”
She had no response to that.
“Word is the more you buy, the more you get. Don’t you have a card now? You should frequent this place more, it’s better value if you buy more.”
“Hm? Hm.” Li Shengxia gave it some thought and still could not shake the feeling that something was amiss. Forget it, she was probably overthinking it. Besides, she got a great deal out of it.
He used the rearview mirror to steal a look at her plain face without makeup on. Even without it, she was irrefutably gorgeous. Her soft, ample skin was milky white like pieces of suet jade.
“Where are we going next?”
“Registration, of course.”
“Registration?”
“How else are we going to fool grampa?” he answered flatly and glanced at her expression from the rearview mirror.
Li Shengxia was taken aback.
Of course a wedding would involve registration…
How did she forget about that?
“I thought we’re just putting on a front, there’s no need to commit all the way.”
His expression froze for a split second before he chuckled icily. “Since we’re putting on an act anyway, might as well go the whole nine yards!”
After that, she did not say anything else.
The atmosphere in the car was depressing.
After some time, they finally stopped.
*
Civil Affairs Bureau.
Mo Nianchen kept walking in front of her and she could only keep her head down and trail after him. Never in her wildest dreams would she ever expect to see herself walking in this sort of place with Mo Nianchen!
That man, the same man who had disappeared from her life for five years…
The bizarre, unpredictable man.
She could feel her heartbeat racing at an uncontrollable pace.
Pictures.
Mo Nianchen sat to her left. They were sitting so close to each other, his naturally intimidating presence unnerved her.
The way he remained silent and hardly spared her a look made the mood more awkward than it needed to be. She wanted to run but had nowhere to go.
It was as if she was thrown into the middle of a gigantic cobweb. No matter which way she ran, there was no escape.
The photographer instructed. “Miss, please lean your head closer to the mister’s shoulder, further—”
Li Shengxia could only heed his direction and keep edging closer towards him. As the two of them got closer, she could feel the warm heat when their shoulders touched.
She could feel his body temperature and the tempo of his breathing, she became incredibly nervous.
“Relax your shoulders, smile.”
“Miss, you don’t have to be so nervous! Relax!”
Li Shengxia froze awkwardly. In that split instant, he suddenly held her waist with his arm. She jolted instinctively, then managed to relax.
“Good, get closer! Smile!”
Following a click and a flash from the camera, the image began to stabilize.
“Alright—”
Even after taking the picture, he kept holding her by the waist. He took two forms and handed one to her.
After filling one of the forms, Li Shengxia received a red notebook.
Their names were writing together on a sheet of paper.
She was married!
No rites, no ceremonies, no audience, no blessings, and no vows. Just like this, she had become somebody’s wife.
Was this the first picture she had ever taken with Mo Nianchen?
They sure looked intimate…
She was the only one who knew, however…
The intimacy they shared was just what was on the surface.
He led her out of the Civil Affairs Bureau without a single word shared between them.
She trailed after him without a word, with the marriage certificate in hand.
As she was descending, she suddenly missed a step on the staircase.
At the same time, he held her steady on her feet.
It felt like everything froze for a second. She could feel the heat of his palm. She lowered her head and broke away from him before muttering, “Thanks.”
The distant tone in her voice when she said her thanks soured Mo Nianchen’s mood.
He ordered coldly, “Hand me your phone!’
She looked at him with confusion in her eyes. “What for?”
“Just hand it over!”
Though she was puzzled, she did not try to resist and obediently handed her phone over to him.
Mo Nianchen grabbed her phone and quickly inserted several numbers and quickly turned to look at his phone screen. After that, he asked coldly, “Why did you stop using the previous number?”
Previous? Li Shengxia was surprised to hear that, she already lost count of how many times she changed numbers over the years.
Maybe he was talking about five years ago? After getting rejected by him, she kept waiting for his call. She waited a whole week before accepting the fact that he was never going to call her, she decided she was going to start anew and changed everything. She did not suspend the old number, but she did not continue using it either.
Why was he asking about this? Could he possibly still remember her old number?
She scoffed at the thought of her thinking so highly of herself. She answered him, “I ditched it.”
“Ditched it?” he scoffed. It must be so easy being her! To be able to just simply ditch it and leave it at that!
He glanced at her phone screen and saw that the screen did not pop up with her name, which meant that she did not even have his number saved! He was listed as an anonymous number!
There were slight hints of hesitation in his movements, but at last, he saved his number in the contacts: Husband.
After that, he impatiently tossed the phone back to her.
She barely managed to catch it in time. She took the phone and felt a sense of familiarity when she looked at the number—
There was a time when she could effortlessly spell out the number backward from memory. Even now, her heart still skipped a beat when she saw the number.
It has been five years, and he had never changed his phone number even once?
She shot him a puzzled look. He was still standoffish as usual, the same devil as she had always remembered him to be.
After that she lowered her head and snickered, some people just simply do not like changing their number, what was so weird about it? She was not full of herself enough to assume that she was the reason why.
When Mo Nianchen did not get a response from her, he twitched his eyebrows in agitation and left her with an icy remark, “From today onwards, you will show up whenever and wherever I want.”
Just like that, he left her at the entrance of the Civil Affairs Bureau and strutted away—