Early in the morning of October 3, pure white flower baskets were placed outside the lobby of the Provincial Capital Hotel.
The floral designers were still busy in the venue, preparing for this wedding that had been going on for so long. Flowers were in short supply in October, so they arranged the flowers that were flown in from Kunming early this morning as exhibits in the venue as planned.
Next to the flower basket, there is a sign with the names of the newlyweds: Jiang Qiaoxi and Lin Qile.
It was past four in the afternoon, and more and more guests arrived at the hotel. The groom's father, Jiang Zheng, had dyed his hair black and wore a well-tailored suit. He was over fifty years old, but he still attracted attention among the crowd. From his posture, it can be seen that he was a handsome man when he was young. He held the groom's father's boutonniere in his hand and made a phone call in the red-carpeted corridor of the hotel.
"Liang Hongfei," he asked anxiously, "Now that you're here, what's wrong with you?"
"I've divorced you, Jiang Zheng," the woman said rudely on the phone, "Stop caring about me. We agreed that Mengchu would be mine and Qiaoxi would be yours!"
Jiang Zheng stood by the window, the sunlight enveloped him from behind, but he was facing the darkness.
"No matter how much you belong to me," Jiang Zheng said coldly, "you are still Qiaoxi's mother. You have an obligation to be here today."
"Stop wishful thinking!" Liang Hongfei said.
Jiang Zheng opened his mouth and wanted to say something else, but Liang Hongfei interrupted him: "Jiang Zheng, you should forget about Meng Chu in the future..."
"You and Qiaoxi, live a good life. I will take good care of Mengchu."
She hung up the phone.
In the meeting place, colleagues from the power system were greeting the father of the bride, electrician Lin Haifenglin.
"This son-in-law is someone that Engineer Lin has raised since he was a child! He has been strictly checked at every level, so my daughter can rest assured when she marries him!"
A group of people laughed, Lin Haifeng nodded and said with a smile: "Of course, of course..."
He was still looking down at the manuscript for his speech at the wedding. He was so nervous that he had read it so many times that the paper was worn thin. Seeing more and more guests coming, Electrician Lin folded up the manuscript and put it into the pocket of his Tang suit with his fingers. The old friends asked about Qiaoxi again, and Lin Haifeng said: "Qiaoxi has been a good child since he was young, excellent, kind, filial..."
"I know how satisfied you, Taishan, are with this son-in-law!"
Manager Cai Yue stood at the door, listening to a group of people flattering him. He recently moved into a big villa bought by his own son. He was in high spirits because he was just about to attend his son's wedding. People asked him how much red envelope Manager Cai would give to Lin Yingtao for her wedding: "How much did Taishan Tourism earn that year! Manager Cai can't give less!"
Manager Cai was unhappy when he heard this: "We have our own children. Let alone Lin Yingtao, who can we take care of less, Yu Qiao or Du Shang? It will be soon! You can't be partial!"
At this moment, Manager Cai caught a glimpse of someone outside the corridor, and his voice suddenly rose: "Oh, Manager Jiang!"
Jiang Zheng came in with a smile, shook hands with his old subordinate Cai Yue, exchanged pleasantries, and then walked over. "My dear in-laws!" Jiang Zheng laughed loudly, stretched out his hands and hugged the smiling electrician Lin.
Someone said: "Manager Jiang will have to give a leadership speech soon!"
Jiang Zheng waved his hands quickly: "My eloquence has declined!"
A Mercedes drove up to the hotel entrance.
Jiang Qiaoxi got out of the car. He had just finished a temporary job at the company and went to work while still wearing the groom's suit. He wanted to get to the venue quickly.
The bridesmaid Qin Yeyun was talking to some aunts in the hall. She saw him and shouted, "Jiang Qiaoxi, why are you here just now? Come in quickly!"
Jiang Qiaoxi stopped outside the door. He stood by the car, across the road and the traffic, and saw a person he hadn't seen for many years standing across the street.
Liang Hongfei stood at the door of a post office, wearing a dark red suit that was so dark that it looked black. She had her hair tied up, still as meticulous as before. Liang Hongfei also looked at him. Cars were coming and going, and she didn't even wave to him. She brought this child into this world, but the child broke away from her.
Qin Yeyun ran into the preparation room at the back. As soon as he pushed the door open, he heard Lin Yingtao nervously complaining to the makeup artist: "I only ate a few cookies at noon, but I still feel sick in my stomach—"
Qin Yeyun lifted the hem of her bridesmaid's skirt and walked in, then hit her on the back: "Your husband is here! Don't be nervous!"
The stylist looked up from the side and looked out the door: "Is the groom here?"
"No, no," Qin Yeyun explained hurriedly, "Her husband was called back to the company just now and is here now."
Lin Yingtao's cousin's wife held her nephew's hand and sat on the sofa to play. "Qiaoxi's job is very busy." said the cousin's wife. The nephew took the dragon and phoenix bracelet in the wooden box and said, "It's so heavy!"
My cousin's wife took off the dragon and phoenix bracelet, put it back into the box and buckled it up: "Don't move it, Sister Cherry will wear it when she comes back to change into her wedding dress!"
"What is a wedding dress?" asked the nephew.
Lin Yingtao listened to the makeup artist and closed her eyes obediently. She said, "When you get married, I'll give this pair of bracelets to your bride, okay?"
The nephew covered his mouth with his hands and asked curiously, "My bride? My bride?"
Lin Yingtao finished her makeup and her hair was done. She opened her eyes and looked in the mirror. Qin Yeyun said beside her, "Lin Yingtao, you are so beautiful!" Lin Yingtao smiled and pursed her lips. She shrugged her shoulders nervously, stood up, went into the dressing room, took off her bathrobe, and put on her wedding dress with the help of the stylist.
When she put on her wedding dress, she put an orange flower crown in her hair and a veil on. The stylist opened the bride's own jewelry and put on a gemstone cherry necklace and earrings for her.
Qin Yeyun stood aside, holding the pair of Ferragamo's little red shoes in her hands. She suddenly sighed, "Jiang Qiaoxi is really good at calculating. Every gift he gave to Lin Yingtao can be used for the wedding. It's not a loss at all!"
My cousin's wife was laughing behind me.
"That also requires Cherry to take good care of it," my cousin's wife said seriously, "otherwise how could it have been preserved for so many years and still look like new even after the wedding."
Music started playing in the wedding venue. A jazz band was playing slow pop songs, most of which were songs that the young people born in 1990 loved to listen to when they were young. It started with Stefanie Sun's songs, and the first one was "It's Getting Dark".
The big screen began to show the electronic photo album of the bride and groom. The first photo was of Lin Yingtao, three years old, with two pigtails, being held in her father's arms while eating. Many guests were seated at the venue, one table after another, and everyone was smiling.
The next photo is of Jiang Qiaoxi at kindergarten in Hong Kong, where he dressed up as Nezha and took part in a group performance at the kindergarten.
The emcee of the wedding, Duchamp, was wearing a suit and had shiny hair. He was still mumbling to himself about his opening remarks and was so nervous that he didn't even care about his girlfriend. When he looked up, he saw that Jiang Qiaoxi, with his poker face, had such a funny look when he was a child. Everyone burst into laughter and he held his stomach with his hands.
A line of words appeared on the electronic photo album.
“We met in 1999!”
After being spruced up by the makeup artist and having cufflinks and a watch put on, Jiang Qiaoxi walked into the venue.
"Oh, Qiaoxi is here!" Several uncles and aunts from the headquarters community were sitting at the door. "Congratulations!"
A picture appeared on the screen:
At the door of the former brick dormitory at the Qunshan construction site, Lin Yingtao, wearing two long ponytails and a small skirt, happily stood next to her new neighbor, the transfer student Jiang Qiaoxi, and took a photo with him.
Team leader Yu Zhenfeng was at the family table. He folded his hands over his chest, smiled and looked at the screen, and said loudly: "This is the Qunshan construction site!"
The next photo was taken on Jiang Qiaoxi’s birthday. He invited his four friends to play in the game room of the Qunbai Building. Each of them held a glass of juice. Lin Yingtao and Du Shang were obviously having too much fun playing the dance machine, and their hair was extremely messy.
Jiang Qiaoxi greeted the guests one by one amid their laughter. Jiang Qiaoxi should have done this earlier, as he came too late.
Mr. and Mrs. Yu, Yu Jin, and Grandma Yu and Grandma Zhang sat at the same table. Grandma Zhang, the former principal of Qunshan Kindergarten, asked Grandma Yu, "Yingtao, are you really going to be a kindergarten teacher?"
Grandma Yu waved her hands: "Don't ask me, I can't hear you!" She then smiled because Jiang Qiaoxi bent over to greet her. "Okay, okay!" She looked at Jiang Qiaoxi happily and nodded.
Squad Leader Yu patted Jiang Qiaoxi on the back and said, "Grandma Zhang, look at you. You were very kind to your daughter when she was young. You now have someone to carry on your career!"
Du Shang's mother and Cai Fangyuan's mother were also sitting at the table. Because both sons went to college in Shanghai, the two mothers had become quite familiar with each other over the years. Cai Fangyuan's mother asked, "When will Du Shang get married?"
Du Shang's mother said, "I don't know. I'm so busy. I don't know when we can have the wedding." Then she asked, "Where's Fang Yuan?"
Cai Fangyuan's mother ate melon seeds and sneered, "Our kid is too playful. He is brought up by his father and only thinks about making money."
Qin Yeyun's father sat at the next table, next to driver Shao, Aunt Xie and her family of three, and next to Boss Wang, who had left the power construction industry a few years ago. Boss Wang took the initiative to greet him: "Old Qin, I heard from Brother Lin that your daughter has opened an online store now, isn't that amazing?"
Uncle Qin was also dressed up nicely, with a Rolex on his wrist. He smiled and said, "It's all because of my daughter's hard work. I am just getting some benefits from her!"
Driver Shao was sitting next to them. He looked at the photo on the screen of Lin Yingtao receiving the Three Good Students Award at Qunshan City No. 1 Middle School in her third year of junior high school. He said with emotion, "These kids in our school are all very promising!"
Yu Qiao was sitting at the table with his classmates. He was also wearing a shirt and a suit. He was the "navigator" of today's wedding. He helped his old friend drive the wedding car in the morning when the bride and groom were picked up and the bridal chamber was in full swing. But he had nothing to do with the wedding ceremony.
He sat with Lin Yingtao's deskmate, Huang Zhanjie, and he asked Huang Zhanjie, "Are you still writing urban romance novels?"
Huang Zhanjie hesitated: "In order to make a living, I have to try all kinds of subjects!"
Du Shang's girlfriend came over and sat on the other side of Yu Qiao. The table was mostly empty. Qin Yeyun and Cai Fangyuan were pulled away to be bridesmaids and groomsmen, so Du Shang had to be the master of ceremonies. Du Shang's girlfriend chatted with Yu Qiao and Huang Zhanjie for a while, then asked Xin Tingting next to her, and Xin Tingting's boyfriend Lao Zheng.
"Are you all in the same high school class?" she asked.
Sitting across the table were Feng Letian, the monitor of Lin Yingtao's class, and Dai Lixin, Lin Yingtao's junior high school classmate. Dai Lixin was very nervous to sit in such an occasion, and she quickly waved her hand: "I'm not."
It seems that Yu Qiao is the only single person here. Even Huang Zhanjie is having an online romance.
Xin Tingting pointed at Yu Qiao and said to Du Shang's girlfriend, "He was from our 2005 experimental school team. There were many girls who liked him in our campus before!"
Dushan’s girlfriend looked at Yu Qiao again and smiled: “I know, Dushan told me!”
Yu Qiao was curious: "What are you talking about me?"
Dushan’s girlfriend couldn’t help laughing: “He said he suspected you liked men!”
Xin Tingting's boyfriend Lao Zheng had a mouthful of tea in his mouth and almost spit it out.
The electronic photo album flashed with a news photo of Jiang Qiaoxi winning the top spot in the city's high school entrance examination in 2005, and the guests below began to applaud. Then there was a photo of Jiang Qiaoxi being admitted to the provincial team for the Mathematical Olympiad in his second year of high school, and taking a group photo with his classmates on the provincial team.
The next photo was a random photo taken in the class. Jiang Qiaoxi stood beside Huang Zhanjie's desk during the break. He was wearing a blue and white school uniform and smiled at the camera. Huang Zhanjie was awkwardly sandwiched in the middle. Lin Yingtao was sitting on the desk on the other side and also smiled at the camera from behind her book.
The following line of small words: Thanks to Cai Fangyuan for the kind provision.
Teacher Chen, the head teacher of Experimental High School, said with a slow smile: "This is the scene of premature love, Jiang Qiaoxi, I caught you in the act!"
Jiang Qiaoxi stood nearby, put his hand on Teacher Chen's shoulder and smiled.
Also sitting at this table were several of Jiang Qiaoxi's math teachers when he was in elementary school and middle school, as well as the provincial team leader's teacher and the leader's son, Qi Le.
"Senior Jiang, congratulations!" Qi Le stood up specifically. He is studying for a doctorate in mathematics.
Jiang Qiaoxi shook his shoulder and nodded to him.
The electronic photo album contained a headshot photo of Lin Yingtao and Jiang Qiaoxi taken on Wangfujing Street in Beijing during the summer vacation of their second year of high school.
Jiang Zheng sat at the bottom, and when the wedding started, he would sit at the front.
He scratched his hair, and like everyone else, he stared at the electronic photo album, listening to Manager Cai talking to him. Jiang Zheng shook his head and said, "This is also the first time I've seen this side of my son..."
The next photo that appeared was from 2008, when Lin Yingtao was wearing a dance costume and rehearsing in the auditorium of Beijing Normal University. At the same time, Jiang Qiaoxi was enrolled in the University of Hong Kong. He stood at the door of a classroom and took a photo with his teaching assistant who graduated from Tsinghua University. Jiang Qiaoxi looked a little tired, and he had forgotten to shave his stubble.
Soon, in the fall of 2010, Lin Yingtao was sitting in the Maxim's restaurant at the University of Hong Kong eating teppanyaki. She smiled at the camera, and it was obviously the camera taken by Jiang Qiaoxi's mobile phone.
Several professors and teaching assistants from HKU, as well as Jiang Qiaoxi's boss at Morgan Stanley, sat at the same table, along with Jiang Qiaoxi's cousin and the boss of his fund company. Jiang Qiaoxi walked over, shook hands with them, and thanked them one by one for coming from afar.
Sitting at the table next to them were several seniors from Lin Yingtao University, teachers from Beijing Normal University, and the vice-director and colleagues from their kindergarten. Meng Lijun turned around and quietly glanced at the table from HKU. She covered her mouth and said to her classmates, "That table is a bit creepy! Too elitist!"
The photos at the back of the electronic album clearly show that the bride and groom are deeply in love. They spent the New Year together in Hong Kong, climbing the Peak, going shopping, having reunion dinners at relatives' homes, and watching fireworks at Victoria Harbour.
The next photo is the wedding photo taken at the Civil Affairs Bureau.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood at the end of a long corridor in the main venue. He handed his mobile phone to his assistant and listened to the wedding designer go over the final details with him and the emcee Duchamp.
The moment he heard the applause in the conference hall, Jiang Qiaoxi looked up and saw his and Yingtao's wedding photo appearing on the screen.
Jiang Qiaoxi also looked up. He was in the venue filled with flowers and colorful balloons. In the soft light shining on his face, he also felt strange. How could the little girl who was crying at the construction site in the mountains just now be wearing a wedding dress and become his bride
The nephew, wearing a white suit and a small bow tie, helped Sister Cherry hold up the hem of her wedding dress. Lin Yingtao, holding the bouquet, nervously walked to the back of the venue. The wedding organizer said that when the door was opened, the groom would be standing across the red carpet: "The bride is going to walk over there. Don't be afraid. Don't think about anything. Just walk along this road, holding your father's hand, and walk towards your ideal husband. He will be waiting for you over there."
"cherry!"
At the other end of the corridor, Lin Haifeng came.
"Dad." Lin Yingtao saw him from afar, she said softly, her shoulders trembling, and she was about to cry.
Qin Yeyun whispered to her, "Hey, don't cry!"
Electrician Lin came over, smiled, and gently patted Lin Yingtao's head, which was covered with a snow-white veil: "Oh, Yingtao is so beautiful!"
Duchamp started speaking into the microphone inside the door. He spoke so fast at first that everyone laughed and cheered.
Lin Yingtao held back her tears. She smiled at Qin Yeyun and her cousin's wife. She held the bouquet in her hand and held her father's arm. As soon as the door opened, she walked forward and suddenly a petal fell on her shoulder.
Jiang Qiaoxi turned around at the other end of the corridor and saw her.
Dad held Cherry's hand and supported her, walking forward step by step like when they were little: "Look, Qiaoxi is there."