Gou An returned home and found that her parents were actually there. She was instantly full of grievance. She fluttered her wings like a baby bird and flew into her mother’s arms.
Gou An’s mother, Jiang Yuan, was only in her early forties. She was originally the eldest daughter of the Jiang family in Ningcheng. She and Gou An’s father, Gou Yu, fell in love when they were in university, and they got married naturally after graduation. She has only been loved and pampered for so many years, and now she looked like she was only in her thirties.
Very different from the withered rose in Gou An’s prophetic nightmare, Jiang Yuan has black hair, delicate skin, and always had a slight smile on her lips.
At this time, she had been sitting on the sofa in her home clothes, reading a magazine. From time to time she would look up and point at one or the other of the two ties that her husband was choosing from, when suddenly there was a flurry little thing in her arms.
Jiang Yuan stopped talking, raised her hand to stroke her daughter’s hair, and said in a gentle voice, “Oh, what’s wrong with mom’s little daughter?”
The thing in her arms didn’t say anything but silently tightened her arms around her mom’s waist.
Jiang Yuan was in a bit of pain from her waist being strangled. When she looked up, she saw the maid, Ade, standing there hesitant to speak. She was about to ask, but the little miss in her arms seemed to have eyes on the back of her head and immediately said, “Don’t ask Ade. Ade, don’t say anything!”
She pushed herself into Jiang Yuan’s arms with all her strength before Gou Yu picked her up by the back of her collar, messing her hair up in the process—
Gou An’s dad probably had a company meeting today, and he was still wearing a white shirt.
It was just that he no longer had the majesty he normally had when he was in the company. With his somewhat messy collar open, the man’s handsome face was completely relaxed, and he half-warned his daughter, “If you have something to say, just say it properly. Just hugging your mother and acting coquettishly won’t do anything. You’re strangling her waist.”
Gou An could also be her father’s little girl at critical moments.
Kicking her legs, she kicked off her slippers, and with a ‘squeak’, she crawled onto her father this time, “Dad, I don’t want to be engaged to He Ran. You go tell the He family that we are canceling the engagement—“
“Nonsense.”
His voice was serious but the action of peeling his clinging daughter off his neck was infinitely gentle.
Gou An was thrown back on the sofa.
“It’s not nonsense, you may want me to marry him, but I won’t marry him and you can’t make me!”
“Gou An!”
Gou An moaned and covered her ears, then rolled herself into Jiang Yuan’s arms again.
Jiang Yuan didn’t even bother to look at her handsome husband and only stroked her daughter’s hair with her soft fingertips, “Oh, so An’An and He Ran quarreled? Was it because you lied to him before about meeting him after he was kidnapped? The whole savior thing?”
Gou An didn’t speak, which was her agreeing to the question.
“Silly little child, why did you even lie to He Ran when you had nothing to do with his rescue in the first place? Even if you hadn’t lied to him, you two would still get married,” Jiang Yuan’s voice was gentle and soft, “It’s like you were looking for a reason to quarrel when there’s no reason to.”
Gou An buried her head deeper.
Jiang Yuan raised her eyes and glanced at Gou Yu—
The latter looked a little uncomfortable. After all, he had always known that his wife was not very satisfied with He Ran, this future son-in-law of theirs. She always felt that he was not calm enough and did not pay enough attention to their daughter…
Every few days, she would discuss with him whether this engagement was a bit unreliable.
But whatever she said before, she was would always be persuaded by Gou Yu’s words.
After all, the Gou and He families have been in constant contact, and their cooperation was a win-win relationship. And these two were a pair of childhood sweethearts who have grown up together, having known each other since they were wearing diapers1…
Unlike other big families, the He family never took the cultivation of their younger generation lightly nor were they too indulgent of them. Therefore, although He Ran had a loose personality, he was actually the best among his peers in terms of hard power.
Gou Yu really felt that He Ran was the perfect son-in-law.
After he tried his best to persuade her, Jiang Yuan reluctantly accepted the engagement between the two children.
In the past, Gou An and He Ran had small quarrels in private, but it had never happened before that Gou An took the initiative to break off the engagement.
Thinking of this, Gou Yu’s eyes darkened. Although he had no idea what happened, he was still a little unhappy with this junior, He Ran.
Although it was his daughter who had deceived people first, the Gou family never got a single yuan of benefit from the He family because of this incident.
He raised his hand and fiddled with his open collar, and did not forget to pretend to lecture his daughter, “What are you making noises for? Get out of your mother’s arms and tidy up. If you have anything to say, just say it in front of the He family tonight and make things clear.”
Gou An was stunned, “What’s happening tonight?”
Jiang Yuan explained to her patiently, “He Jinxing is back from abroad, and Old Mr. He intends to let him take over the He family. He is preparing to host house-to-house banquets these days. Our family is the first one. It’s tonight at He’s house next door—“
“What? I’m not going!”
“Gou An.”
“Mom, Dad is scolding me!”
Jiang Yuan frowned, “Gou Yu.”
Gou Yu was silent for a while. He had long been accustomed to the family’s pattern of ‘holding the emperor hostage to control the princes’2. He flicked the buttons on his collar, “Tsk.” He said to Jiang Yuan, “Fine, just indulge her like this, so used to being lawless that she can even make trouble and break off the engagement with He Ran!”
Gou An was too lazy to pay attention to him and buried her face again in Jiang Yuan’s arms. Gou Yu threw away the tie he had finally settled on that he had been holding in his hand.
When Jiang Yuan saw this, her eyebrows relaxed and she gave him a soft smile, “Don’t you want to wear the tie?”
“No, it’s not an important occasion.” Gou Yu looked down at his daughter who was still desperately clinging to her mother and his voice sounded so annoyed, ”Gou An, how old are you? Get off your mother, don’t be a brat and refuse to listen, wait ’til I spank you.”
Only then did Gou An get up with a pouty face.
Gou Yu nudged her calf with his foot and said, “Go and change your clothes.”
Gou An raised her eyebrows and wanted to refuse, but Gou Yu once again reminded, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk to He Ran… You can ignore him for the time being, but he is not the protagonist tonight.”
It was He Jinxing.
Gou An thought of the man with cold eyebrows under the black umbrella under the heavy rain that night.
The Favorability Level was 10, and the color of the favorability display was…
Tsk.
He disliked her so much.
Silently shivering, Gou An reluctantly went upstairs to change clothes.
From The Day The Engagement Was Broken translated by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com
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FOOTNOTES:
- The phrase used is ‘wearing crotchless pants’ which is what babies/toddlers used for easy peeing and pooping. That linked wiki is a pretty interesting read on how something intrinsically cultural clashed with big company marketing—and lost ↩︎
- Idiom, and in this context quite funny. Jiang Yuan is the emperor and Gou An knows that her dad—the prince—cannot go against her mom haha. Dad Gou is actually very sweet, throughout the story it’s clear he adores his wife very much. ↩︎
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