Chapter 546 - 204: Bickering Lovers (2)
"Who are you calling your daughter-in-law?"
De’an, on high alert, threw open the window and yelled, "Mother, what are you doing? Are you trying to set me up with another match? Mother, there’s really no rush. A man has to establish his career before starting a family. Just wait until I become a scholar..."
Before De’an could finish, he heard his mother whisper, barely suppressing her excitement, "I’m going to send someone to the Prefectural Magistrate’s Office to sound out the Lord Prefect, to see if he’ll marry that girl, Kaiyan, into our family."
De’an: "..."
His face flushing crimson, De’an bolted out of his room.
"Mother, my dearest mother, please don’t make a mess of things. Just think of their family’s standing, and then ours. We’re worlds apart! If word of this gets out, everyone will say I’m a toad lusting after a swan."
"Well, Kaiyan certainly is a swan. As for whether you’re a toad, that’s for you to decide. In any case, I think I’m quite a catch myself, so I doubt I’d give birth to a toad. Oh, stop pulling at me! Go on, mind your own business. I’m busy too. I’m off to find the official matchmaker..."
Xu Su Ying was a whirlwind of action. She left De’an standing there and dashed off, pulling her daughter along with her.
De’an was so frantic he felt like his head was about to explode, and a fine sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead.
He grabbed Zhao Jing imploringly. "Jing! Jing! You have to go get Mother and bring her back!"
"Why don’t you go?"
"I can’t win an argument with her. She won’t listen to me."
"And you think I can win an argument with her? That she’ll listen to me?" Zhao Jing said teasingly. "Don’t worry. They’re just going to sound him out. If the Lord Prefect doesn’t agree, our messenger will be sent packing. We won’t even have to convince her; she’ll give up on her own."
De’an’s face was a sight to behold, shifting from red to ashen, then to dark, and from dark to purple.
But in the end, he couldn’t say another word. He just stomped his foot and went back to his room.
For the rest of the afternoon, however, De’an’s mind was clearly not on his practice exams.
Zhao Jing was advising him on how to structure his answers—that he needed to go deeper at the end, that his conclusion must elevate the theme, perhaps by subtly hinting at his willingness to devote his life to service, or to contribute his humble efforts toward an era of lasting peace, and so on.
But none of it registered with De’an.
Seeing this, Zhao Jing simply stopped talking.
He picked up a book, sat down in a nearby chair, and started to read.
It took De’an a good while to realize the room had gone quiet. He turned to hurry Zhao Jing along, only to see that the spot beside him was empty.
He glanced behind him and, sure enough, saw Zhao Jing sitting comfortably in a chair, flipping through a novel.
De’an shuffled over to him and asked, "What do you think about Sheng Kaiyan and me... about the two of us...?"
"What about you two?"
De’an gritted his teeth. "Do you think we’re a good match?"
"No, I don’t."
"And why not!" De’an shot back, suddenly agitated. "I’m talented and she’s beautiful, we both love playing polo, we’re on the same wavelength when we talk, we even like the same foods..."
De’an’s voice trailed off as he spoke, because Zhao Jing was staring right at him, his gaze seeming to pierce straight through to his soul.
De’an covered his face and slumped onto a nearby stool. "I’m at that age... It’s not strange for me to like a girl, is it?"
Zhao Jing scoffed. "Like her? I certainly haven’t seen any sign of it."
"We’re one of those bickering couples! Surely you’ve noticed that, right?"
"Are you sure you’re not the only one who’s noticed?"
De’an: "..."
’He finally got it. Jing was just messing with him on purpose.’
De’an felt deeply wronged. "I didn’t throw cold water on your plans when you were marrying my sister."
"Heh. You didn’t throw cold water on my plans. You tried to pick a fight with me."
De’an said sheepishly, "Was that a fight? That was just a friendly spar. We were... bonding."
Zhao Jing couldn’t be bothered to listen to his rambling. He just got up and walked outside.
De’an paced around, anxious and agitated, but there was nothing he could do. Finally, he threw himself onto his bed to sulk.
As it turned out, all that sulking just made him fall asleep...
Zhao Jing, who returned to see this scene: ...
’Thinking back,’ he mused, ’when I wanted to marry his sister, I didn’t dare shut my eyes for two days straight, terrified I’d have a bad dream if I fell asleep.’
’Even during the time after she’d agreed to the marriage but before the wedding, I was a complete wreck and never got a single night of peaceful sleep.’
’And then there’s De’an. Acting like this, yet he claims he adores the girl and wants to marry her.’
’Does he even know how much this "adoration" of his is really worth?’
Leaving Zhao Jing and De’an for a moment, let’s return to Xu Su Ying, who had sent the official matchmaker to the Prefectural Magistrate’s Office to inquire.
When the official matchmaker heard the request, she stared at Xu Su Ying as if she were some kind of exotic curiosity.
Even for an official matchmaker who had seen all kinds of people, encountering someone as unconventional as Xu Su Ying left her a little stunned.
The official matchmaker was perfectly polite, but her smiling eyes said it all: ’Your family has a mere Sixth-rank Official, and you have the audacity to covet the daughter of a fourth-rank minister? What on earth gives you the nerve?’