"Register our marriage?"
"Take wedding photos?!"
Lin Chuan and Su Qingxue asked in unison.
The difference was that Lin Chuan used an interrogative sentence, while Su Qingxue used an oversized exclamation mark.
Coming back to her senses, Su Qingxue abruptly stood up, glared at Su Zhen, and said, "Dad, don't go too far!"
As for Lin Chuan, he was still devouring his food like a whirlwind, eating while watching the father and daughter's reactions as if none of this had anything to do with him.
In truth, he didn't really know what a marriage was like; he only knew that once married, he wouldn't be able to focus on cultivating the Dao, which was why he had come to call off the engagement in the first place.
Su Zhen waved his hand, frowned, and said, "I haven't finished yet. What are you rushing for? Sit down!"
Hearing this, Su Qingxue took a deep breath and sat back down.
"Since Xiaochuan is going to protect your safety, he naturally needs an identity. The two of you are just having a fake marriage. For Xiaochuan to protect you in the name of your husband is both reasonable and proper, and it can also shut the Cheng family's mouths. Isn't that killing two birds with one stone?"
Su Qingxue glanced at Lin Chuan, who was still stuffing his face, and her expression turned even colder.
"Then couldn't it be something like a bodyguard?"
Su Zhen had long since prepared an answer for this: "How can a bodyguard guarantee your safety twenty-four hours a day?"
"Can a bodyguard live in the same house as you?"
"Besides, Xiaochuan came all this way to protect you. Asking him to be a bodyguard would be far too impolite."
Su Qingxue wanted to say more, but Su Zhen cut her off.
"Alright, alright, that's how this matter is settled. Anyway, you're just having a fake marriage, it's not real. Otherwise, just think about what the consequences would have been this time if Xiaochuan hadn't saved you?"
"Things like this might happen again in the future, and ordinary bodyguards simply can't protect you."
At that moment, Lin Chuan, who had been stuffing his face the whole time, finally put down his bowl and chopsticks.
"Uncle Su, I'm full. I'll go back to my room first."
With that, Lin Chuan stood up, preparing to leave.
Su Zhen hurriedly said, "Xiaochuan, don't you have anything to say?"
"Not really. You guys can just decide. It's not a real marriage anyway; I'm only here to help Miss Su get past her fatal tribulation."
With that, he left the dining room, leaving the father and daughter staring at each other in dismay.
After Lin Chuan left, Su Zhen said earnestly, "Qingxue, I know you are proud and feel that Xiaochuan isn't good enough for you. But once you get to know him, you'll realize that it's not that Xiaochuan isn't good enough for you, but that you aren't good enough for Xiaochuan."
"In short, just trust your dad. No matter what, dad would never harm you."
"If you can really keep Lin Chuan by your side—no, if you can stay by Lin Chuan's side—it won't just be your own supreme fortune, it will also be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our Su family to take off."
Having said that, Su Zhen didn't care what expression Su Qingxue wore and also left the dining room.
The next day, under Su Zhen's arrangement, Lin Chuan and Su Qingxue still went to the civil affairs bureau to register their marriage, but Lin Chuan refused the wedding photos on the grounds that he could not casually become entangled in karma.
Otherwise, disrupting Su Qingxue's predetermined trajectory might cause deviations in that fatal tribulation.
To this nonsense that sounded no different from a charlatan, Su Qingxue naturally turned a deaf ear, though Su Zhen believed it implicitly.
Watching the two of them register their marriage, Su Zhen smiled and said, "In that case, Qingxue, take Xiaochuan to the place where you live."
Su Qingxue let out a cold snort and turned to walk toward the underground parking garage.
"Uncle Su, don't you and Miss Su live together?"
Su Zhen shook his head. "This villa is in the suburbs of Lvteng City, too far from downtown, which is inconvenient for Qingxue's commute, so she bought another apartment in the city."
"Anyway, I'm leaving Qingxue to you."
At the end, Su Zhen bowed to Lin Chuan.
Lin Chuan hastily helped him up. "Don't worry, Uncle Su, I..."
"Beep beep!"
Su Qingxue drove a red Ferrari supercar out of the underground parking garage, parked it not far away, and honked the horn.
"Get in, or find your own way to follow."
Su Zhen gave a wry smile. "Please bear with Qingxue's temper."
"It's fine."
Lin Chuan nodded, turned, walked up to Su Qingxue's Ferrari supercar, and with a light leap, jumped right onto the roof.
"What are you doing?"
Dumbfounded, Su Qingxue opened the scissor door and watched as Lin Chuan sat upright in a lotus position on top of the car roof.
"Riding in the car."
Su Qingxue glanced at Lin Chuan as if looking at a fool, then opened the scissor door on the other side.
"Riding in the car means sitting inside."
"Oh, oh. Your car is different from that watermelon uncle's car earlier; I don't know how to open the door."
Su Qingxue pressed a hand to her forehead in silence, then slipped into the car.
Imitating Su Qingxue, Lin Chuan squeezed into the Ferrari supercar as well.
The car then shot out of Su Zhen's villa area like a red flash of lightning.
Today, Su Qingxue was wearing a white short-sleeved blouse, a black hip-skirt, and black high heels, with a red women's tie at her collar. Long legs matching a full moon, towering peaks paired with a slender waist—she was the epitome of an ice-queen's temptation.
Yet Lin Chuan, sitting right beside her, looked straight ahead without straying, gazing at the scenery flashing past outside the car window, deep in thought.
Su Qingxue cast a sidelong glance at Lin Chuan.
Lin Chuan's face was that of a standard, classic Oriental beauty: sword-like brows, starry eyes, white teeth and red lips, with extremely distinct facial features. Even by Su Qingxue's picky standards, Lin Chuan certainly deserved the title of a handsome man.
"Considering you saved me yesterday, I won't pursue the matter of you peeping at me taking a bath. But if you dare ever do that again, just you wait!"
Su Qingxue withdrew her gaze and said slowly.
Lin Chuan originally wanted to say that he hadn't peeped, but for some reason, he suddenly felt a bit guilty; he had indeed taken a glance at the plump, rounded curves below Su Qingxue's slender waist.
Thus, he simply kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, remaining entirely silent.
"Ding ding ding!"
Su Qingxue's phone suddenly rang. She answered the call, listened to the person on the other end, and then said, "I'll be right there."
And so, Lin Chuan was dropped off halfway by Su Qingxue, who simply gave him an address before hurrying away.
Watching the red supercar rapidly vanish from sight, Lin Chuan scratched his head.
"But... I don't know the way either."
He looked around. The street was bustling with heavy traffic and an endless stream of pedestrians.
Passersby cast their gazes at Lin Chuan.
Most of them lingered on his face; after all, the reputation of Qingliang Mountain Wu Yanzu wasn't just for show.
"Let's go ask someone for directions first."
It was currently the peak hour for commuting to work and school. Office workers and students carrying backpacks hurried past Lin Chuan one after another.
Lin Chuan intercepted a beautiful woman wearing a JK pleated skirt, a white tight-fitting T-shirt, and a curvaceous figure.
"Excuse me, how do I get to Yunjin Orient?"
The beauty looked at a handsome man dressed in Daoist robes with an ethereal temperament who had stopped her, and her eyes instantly lit up. "Is this some new way of hitting on people? Fine, I can give you my WeChat."
With that, she opened her WeChat QR code and held it out in front of Lin Chuan.
Lin Chuan looked at the beauty with a puzzled expression and simply walked away, muttering as he went, "If you don't know, you don't know; pulling out a phone like that, who knows what it means."
On the other side, the beauty gave Lin Chuan a similarly baffled look. "Being handsome must be a big deal."
Just as Lin Chuan was about to ask the next passerby, he suddenly heard a cry for help coming from nearby.
Focusing his gaze, he saw a dozen people gathered in a circle. Vaguely, he could see an elderly person lying in the middle, while a woman beside them wept helplessly.
Sensing something was wrong, Lin Chuan immediately quickened his pace and walked over.
Drawing closer, he saw a roughly seventy-year-old person lying on the ground, face darkened, with white foam bubbling from the corners of their mouth. They looked severely ill.
"Will someone save my mom? My mom suddenly collapsed, wuwuwu..." The woman nearby looked panicked, her face streaked with tears as she knelt on the ground and begged the surrounding people for help.
Yet the people around just exchanged glances, and some even took a few steps back to put some distance between them, terrified of being extorted.
Incidents like this had been all too common in recent years, leaving no one daring to step forward and help when encountering such situations.
Someone suggested, "None of us know first aid, and we aren't doctors. You should hurry up and call an ambulance."
The woman cried, "I've already called, but the hospital is too far from here. It's going to take a while for an ambulance to arrive, and I'm afraid my mom won't last that long!"
"What kind of illness does the old lady have?" someone asked, craning their neck.
Sobbing, the woman replied, "I don't know either. Her health has always been great, but starting last month, she began having unexplained spasms, fainting, and vomiting white foam. The hospital couldn't figure out the cause either. The doctor said if my mom keeps going like this, she won't have many days left to live."
At this, the woman broke down in loud wails.
Just then, an ambulance belatedly arrived.
"Make way, please make way."
Several medical personnel pushed through the crowd, quickly unfolded a stretcher, and prepared to lift the old lady onto it.
"You can't move her!"
A voice rang out from the back of the crowd, and a handsome youth dressed in Daoist robes rushed in, pressing his hand down on the medical staff's arms. It was none other than Lin Chuan!