Chapter 383: Married to Qin Shanshan?
He pried Mrs. Tang’s hands off of him. "No matter what you say, no matter how you try to force me, I won’t change my mind."
"Even if I can’t win her over, can’t I just wait a few years?"
Tang Yuanxiao’s tone was calm, but his stance was firmer than ever before.
Eavesdropping, Qin Shanshan trembled so violently she could barely stand.
She was more agitated than she had ever been. When Tang Yuanxiao opened the door and appeared before her,
an unknown impulse, a strength she didn’t know she possessed, took over. She swung her hand and slapped him across the face.
"Tang Yuanxiao, I hate you!"
Tears streamed down Qin Shanshan’s face, her eyes filled with resentment and sorrow.
After slapping him, she ran off in tears.
Tang Yuanxiao stood frozen in place for a moment.
For some reason, Qin Shanshan’s expression felt strangely familiar to him.
He didn’t know if he had seen it before or not.
Initially, Tang Yuanxiao didn’t take Qin Shanshan’s slap or her words to heart.
He even thought it was for the best.
Now Qin Shanshan would have to give up.
With that thought in mind, Tang Yuanxiao fell asleep that night and had a dream.
He dreamed of Qin Shanshan slapping him—the very same slap, the same tear-streaked face, and the same words.
But just like the strange dream he’d had before,
everything was different.
The circumstances, the location, the setting—it was all different.
The setting had changed to a bedroom that was both familiar and strange. It was the same bed and the same familiar layout, but the quilt had been replaced with a bright red wedding blanket.
Red paper cutouts of the "double happiness" character were pasted on the wall above the headboard and on the window.
Qin Shanshan was dressed as a bride, wearing a red wedding gown and a red veil.
And it was this Qin Shanshan, dressed as a bride, who slapped him with tears streaming down her face and said, "Tang Yuanxiao, I hate you!"
The moment the slap landed, Tang Yuanxiao jolted awake.
It took him a long, long time to come to his senses.
The familiar feeling, the familiar dream... just like last time. It was clearly a dream, yet it felt as real as if he had actually lived through it.
"Why? Why?"
Tang Yuanxiao’s head was splitting. Everything in the dream had been absurd and fleeting, yet also incredibly clear.
The red blanket, the "double happiness" characters, the slap across his face—it all felt so real, so familiar.
Tang Yuanxiao couldn’t understand it at all.
The last time he’d had an absurd dream, it was because of Su Li’s gaze and her words. He could chalk that up to his deep obsession with her.
But why was he dreaming about Qin Shanshan?
And in such an absurd wedding scene, no less.
With Qin Shanshan like that, in his own bedroom... Tang Yuanxiao couldn’t lie to himself and call it a coincidence. He couldn’t pretend they hadn’t gotten married.
But if he and Qin Shanshan really had gotten married, that would be even more inconceivable.
’How could I possibly marry Qin Shanshan!’
’No matter what, it’s impossible for me to marry Qin Shanshan!’
’Just like there’s no way I would ever choke Su Li, or treat her like that!’
’It’s all so absurd!’
These dreams felt inexplicably real, as if they’d actually happened, yet their content was utterly absurd.
’What on earth is causing this? Why am I having these dreams?’
In the darkness, Tang Yuanxiao replayed the two dreams in his mind.
Both dreams had a common trigger.
It was the words that were spoken.
He would hear certain words in reality, and it was like flipping a switch. The next time he fell asleep, he would have one of these absurd dreams.
’It’s all too bizarre...’
Tang Yuanxiao couldn’t make any sense of it.
He couldn’t figure it out, and he didn’t want to keep having these strange dreams.
But they were completely beyond his control.
For the next several days, Tang Yuanxiao’s dreams were a constant loop of Qin Shanshan slapping him and repeating her words.
The dreams remained brief, but with each repetition, he began to see more details.
For instance, on a nearby table, there was a half-written report of his.
And when he looked down at his own clothes...
...they were familiar, but pinned to his chest was a large red flower—the kind worn only by a groom on his wedding day.
The bizarre dream was a fragment of his wedding to Qin Shanshan.
Haunted by the dream and desperate to avoid it, Tang Yuanxiao couldn’t get a proper night’s sleep for several days.
The next time he saw Qin Shanshan, he couldn’t help but stare, his brow furrowed in thought.
He was in a state of confusion for a while, and buried himself in work. As a result, he couldn’t spare a thought for Su Li in the Imperial City.
When he finally got a break from work, he went to the Imperial City, hoping to see Su Li and Little Tang Mo.
He went to the library, initially just to see what the place Little Tang Mo liked so much looked like. Then, on a faint glimmer of hope, he waited for half an hour.
As it turned out, he actually ran into Little Tang Mo.
Seeing Little Tang Mo suddenly snapped Tang Yuanxiao back to reality.
As he answered Little Tang Mo’s questions, a complex mix of emotions churned within him, impossible to put into words.
Eventually, Tang Yuanxiao saw Su Li, and they exchanged a few words in the hallway outside her apartment.
"I’ve been so busy lately, I haven’t had a chance to check on you. Are you both doing okay?"
Su Li noticed the complicated look in his eyes and nodded. "We’re fine."
The last time they’d met, Tang Yuanxiao had told her he would wait for her.
Su Li, of course, didn’t want that. She had tried to persuade him not to wait, not to do something so foolish.
But Tang Yuanxiao hadn’t listened. "You can reject me, but don’t take away my right to wait for you."
"No matter what you say, I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait until you get married, until you’re happy, until I’ve completely lost all hope. Then, and only then, will I stop waiting."
Back then, Tang Yuanxiao had replied, "Let me wait until I’m thirty-five. If you haven’t come back to me by then, and you’re still happy, then I’ll stop waiting."
Seeing Tang Yuanxiao now, his previous words and the look on his face as he’d said them surfaced in Su Li’s mind.
Su Li swallowed down her complicated feelings and forced herself to make pleasantries.
"And you? Are you doing okay? Did you come up for a reason? Or did you just come to see Little Mo?"
"Same as always. I’m fine." Tang Yuanxiao nodded, his gaze greedily drinking in the sight of Su Li. "I had some business in the Imperial City, so I took the opportunity to come see Momo..." ’...and you,’ he finished silently.
"That’s good." Su Li nodded, but suddenly found herself at a loss for words.
Tang Yuanxiao could see her discomfort. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, he glanced at the door across the hall from hers.
"Come September, I might be in the Imperial City quite often."
"Oh? What for?" Su Li asked.
"Yeah, I’ll be studying here. I applied for military academy last year, and the results are in."
The brutal training, the military academy—he had made those decisions all because of Su Li.
’He’d done it because he wanted to catch up to her, to become a man worthy of her.’
Now, classes hadn’t even started, yet everything had changed.
"Studying... that’s great," Su Li said, understanding. When she felt his gaze linger, she hesitated.
"Will you be staying across the hall?"
No one had ever moved into the apartment across from hers, and Su Li had long suspected that Tang Yuanxiao was still renting it.
Watching Su Li’s expression, Tang Yuanxiao said, "I... I’ll be in the dorms."
’He would be in the dorms, but he’d wanted to stay here on other days.’
But seeing the look on her face, he didn’t say it.
He wanted to ask about her trip to Wu Sheng’s hometown, but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to ask.
As Tang Yuanxiao’s heart filled with an unspeakable bitterness, things back at his family home were far from calm.