Just by playing a temporary stand-in for a little while, he could earn a hundred thousand!
Ji Tan was shamefully tempted for a moment.
But he still waved his hands and refused. Little Ji Tan was a man of principles. “If my brother finds out I’ve been doing this sort of thing outside, he’ll beat me up.”
The bride said, “Two hundred thousand.”
Lawyer Qiao joined in, enthusiastically egging him on.
Ji Tan: “…It’s not about the money.”
He pulled Lawyer Qiao aside and told her about another matter he’d been planning to entrust to her. “I’m still in a contractual marriage that hasn’t been dissolved. We even have a marriage certificate. If someone finds out about this, would it count as bigamy?”
He didn’t want his plan to backfire. He hadn’t even sued Huo Zhaixing yet. It would be a disaster if the Huo family got him thrown in jail first.
“Of course not.” Lawyer Qiao regarded him with the affectionate pity one might show a child who had only just graduated from kindergarten. “Under City A law, bigamy means obtaining two marriage certificates.”
How could going onstage for a ceremony count as bigamy? Especially when this was merely an engagement ceremony.
Ji Tan was thoroughly baffled. How could someone even obtain two marriage certificates?
“The five districts’ marriage-registration systems aren’t connected. You could marry a different person in each of the five districts, as long as nobody found out.” Waggling her eyebrows, Lawyer Qiao explained this well-known City A loophole to Honest Man Ji Tan.
Ji Tan: “!!!”
Relatives and friends from the groom’s side came running from the main hall, blocked the bride’s way out, and tried to persuade her all at once.
“He didn’t do it on purpose. He’ll be back in a little while.”
“Exactly, exactly. What happened with Shuangshuang was an emergency. You’ve always been so understanding. You can appreciate that, right? Just put up with it for now, and everything will settle down…”
Lawyer Qiao couldn’t bear to listen any longer. Tossing her voluminous waves of hair, she stepped in front of the bride. “If you can put up with it, then you marry him.” With that, she shoved the bride’s bouquet into the arms of the older woman doing the persuading.
The relative reeled backward from the rebuke. “I’m his aunt!”
“Let her leave! Once she walks out that door, she won’t find a man more handsome or richer than my son.” The prospective mother-in-law’s imperious voice rang out from the main hall, silencing the smaller room for a moment.
The bride was trembling with rage.
Lawyer Qiao had her assistant hold back the crowd of relatives. Taking the bride by one hand and Ji Tan by the other, she dragged them toward a quiet dressing room. Along the way she couldn’t help scolding, “I’ve told you eight hundred times not to date anyone from the Domineering CEO Sequence. Nine and a half out of every ten are scumbags.”
A staff member from the wedding-planning company hurried over and asked the bride, “Are we still going ahead with the big-screen display we booked?”
Xili District was full of gigantic three-dimensional display screens. Wealthy couples here liked to rent several in the public squares when they married, announcing their happiness to the whole world. Screens had been booked for today’s engagement as well, but now that the groom had run away, the wedding company had no idea what footage to show.
The bride wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. She studied Ji Tan’s face with increasing satisfaction, then gritted her teeth. “Three hundred thousand. And let me post it on the public-square screens and my social media accounts.”
Ji Tan fell silent. This time he didn’t refuse outright. He lowered his gaze, thought for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”
“Little Ji, just think of it as doing your big sister a favor… huh?” Lawyer Qiao, who’d been about to continue persuading him, stopped short.
Overjoyed, the bride immediately called a makeup artist to get Ji Tan ready.
Ji Tan changed into the groom’s spare suit and put on a tie. The makeup artist studied his face from every angle, at a loss for what needed enhancing. In the end, they merely dusted on a little powder and quickly styled his hair.
That small amount of grooming was enough to transform Master Little Ji from the “fish-butchering Pan An” into a dashing groom. The bride was dazzled. She had her best friend and the wedding company’s staff take pictures as fast as they could and help her post them online.
Elio’s Note ¹: Pan An (潘安) is a historical Chinese figure celebrated for his handsome appearance. Calling Ji Tan a “fish-butchering Pan An” is a playful way of calling him exceptionally good-looking even while working at the fish counter.
Ji Tan offered his bent arm like a gentleman. The bride, wearing high heels, slipped her hand through it, and together they walked onto the stage.
“What is the meaning of this?!” the prospective mother-in-law shrieked.
The relatives and friends in the main hall erupted again. There were even reporters in the audience who had come to watch the spectacle, eagerly writing gossip stories on the spot.
【Engagement Banquet Fiasco for Two Minor Wealthy Families, the Xs and Ys: Bride Changes Grooms on the Spot】
Near a public square in Western District.
The four Huo-family bodyguards who had been searching everywhere for someone were busy blaming one another.
One said, “We should’ve stayed on Broken-Wire Street and waited. I heard his brother still works there.”
Another kicked him. “Who told you to kill that unlicensed cab driver? Now the Sequence-Breaking Unit is staking out the area every day, waiting to arrest us!”
The accused man protested, “I didn’t kill him! I just taught him a lesson. How was I supposed to know he’d end up dead?”
Veins bulged on the forehead of the D-rank bodyguard leading them. “Shut up, you bunch of idiots! If we don’t find him soon, I’ll chop the three of you up and turn you in instead!”
“Boss, look at that. Isn’t that Madam?”
On the enormous screen in the square, Ji Tan was cutting an engagement cake with the bride while dressed as the groom. The lavish engagement ceremony looked like something out of a dream. The Huo-family bodyguards stood there dumbstruck.
“You useless fools! You’d better actually have something!” Huo Zhaixing sounded as irritable as ever on the other end of the phone.
“Young Master.” The bodyguard tilted his head away from the force of the shouting, then hurriedly said, “We’ve found Madam.”
“Really?” Huo Zhaixing’s voice instantly turned playful. No longer angry or impatient, he poured himself a glass of red wine and took a leisurely sip. “Go on, then. What terms does he want before he’ll come back?”
The bodyguard swallowed. “He’s married.”
Huo Zhaixing: “???”
The lobby of the Order Administration Bureau.
Xie Zhi checked his phone. No missed calls. Why hadn’t that Little Ji Tan called him to go to the hospital yet? Just how late was it getting? He looked up, noticed several officers from the Sequence-Breaking Unit heading out, and casually asked where they were going.
“An informant spotted those four suspects,” the squad leader came over to report. “At the Jiahao Hotel on Huangban Avenue.”
Xie Zhi raised an eyebrow. “They’re that brazen?”
Wanted suspects were turning up openly at a grand hotel in broad daylight. The Order Officer lowered his head and scrolled through his phone to see whether something was happening around Huangban Avenue that would be worth taking such a risk.
【Minor Wealthy-Family Engagement Takes an Unexpected Turn: Replacement Groom Is Breathtakingly Beautiful! [Photo]】
The banquet hall of the Jiahao Hotel.
The groom’s relatives were in a panic. The prospective mother-in-law had fainted, come around, and immediately called her son in desperation. “Come back this instant! She’s gotten engaged to a fish butcher! And that fish butcher says he’ll marry into her family!”
Ji Tan was conscientiously playing the part of a groom worth three hundred thousand, determined to make the customer feel she’d received exceptional value for money.
He adopted the manner he used when addressing a company meeting, accepted the microphone with a faint smile, and said, “Since I’m now the groom, I ask the hotel security staff to do their jobs properly. Anyone who has no business being here must be kept out of the banquet hall.”
By the time the runaway groom came back, dragging along a weepy young woman, security stopped them at the door.
“I’m the groom! The groom, Zhou Chengyao! Look carefully!” Pointing at the groom’s name on the sign outside, Zhou Chengyao arrogantly shoved the security guard aside and tried to force his way in.
“I’m sorry, but the engagement ceremony is already over,” the guard informed him regretfully. They had moved on to the toasting portion of the banquet.
“Nonsense!” The groom grabbed the guard’s wrist and flung him away. The ordinary security guard couldn’t withstand a shove reinforced with favor-power and was sent flying.
The doors to the banquet hall were pushed open.
The groom saw the fish butcher wearing his clothes, linking arms with his fiancée and offering a toast to his prospective mother-in-law. His eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets with fury.
The tearful young woman sniffled and blocked the bride, who had been chatting with Ji Tan. “Sister Yingying, I’m sorry. I suddenly fell ill and ruined your engagement banquet. Brother Chengyao didn’t mean to do it. Even if you’re angry with him, you shouldn’t gamble away your happiness like this…”
Halfway through, she finally got a proper look at Ji Tan’s face, and the words “just kidding” died on her lips.
The bride behaved as though she hadn’t seen either of them. She simply finished offering the toast and pulled Ji Tan toward the backstage area.
The groom seized the bride’s wrist to stop her leaving, pointed at Ji Tan, and demanded, “Who is he?”
“What are you doing?” Ji Tan raised his hand and chopped down at Zhou Chengyao’s forearm. His knife-hand strike, strong enough to knock a frogfish unconscious, immediately knocked that rude hand away.
Did people in the Domineering CEO Sequence have some sort of ability called “One-Hundred-Percent Wrist Grab”? Huo Zhaixing was always grabbing people’s wrists, and now this Zhou fellow was doing it too.
“Brother Chengyao, are you all right?” The White Moonlight named Shuangshuang came over as well, cradling the forearm that Ji Tan had struck numb and looking thoroughly distressed.
In the midst of the commotion, the banquet hall doors were flung open with a bang.
Four men in black charged in, their gazes locking on the two people at the center of the engagement. The burly man in front frowned and shouted, “Madam! You’re the young madam of the Huo family. How can you marry another man?”
The room erupted in astonishment. The groom’s eyes nearly popped out, and he pointed at the bride. “Y-you-you! You’re the Huo family’s madam?”
Shuangshuang covered her mouth. “Sister, that’s wrong of you. How can one woman marry two husbands?”
Taking advantage of the confusion, the four men suddenly closed in and surrounded Ji Tan. Their leader’s voice turned icy. “Madam, if you don’t want this beautiful bride to get hurt, you’d better come with us.”
Ji Tan stood his ground and offered Shuangshuang a helpless explanation. “They’re talking about me.”
“TS Task Force operation! Everyone, hands on your heads and crouch down!” A team of silver-uniformed officers suddenly rushed in.
“What’s the Sequence-Breaking Unit doing here?” The Huo bodyguards were stunned. Seeing the situation turn against him, their leader spun around and fled. As a D-rank Orderbearer, he moved with extraordinary speed, and two officers raced after him.
The other three had already been forced to the ground. Bound with glowing chains, they were dragged away.
Zhou Chengyao crawled out from under a table with his White Moonlight in tow, looking utterly bewildered. “Who on earth are those people?”
“Criminal suspects.” Ji Tan stood protectively in front of the bride, safeguarding his customer’s safety.
The Sequence-Breaking Unit had come like lightning and vanished like the wind. An uncanny silence settled over the banquet hall.
A tall, extraordinarily handsome man came strolling in through the doors. With a cold expression on his handsome face, he glared at the fish butcher in the groom’s suit.
Zhou Chengyao was near collapse. “And who is this?”
Ji Tan’s mouth twitched. He wanted to say, “He’s here for me too,” but when he met the flames practically leaping from Xie Zhi’s eyes, he no longer had time to explain anything to the scumbag surnamed Zhou.
Xie Zhi’s jaw was clenched tight, his chest rising and falling violently. He looked like a pufferfish on the verge of exploding with rage. “Ji Tan, what are you doing?”