Chapter Eighty-Five: Fiancée?!

“Son, who is this young lady?”
“Oh, she’s my classmate.” As Geng Haoshi spoke, he tried to ease Li Shishi’s hands off his arm… but her grip was firm, her hands wrapped tightly around his right arm, making escape impossible.
Watching Li Shishi cling to her son, Miao Xiaohua mused to herself: The girl is certainly pretty, but a bit too thin. She’ll have a tough time when it comes to having children…
Xu Erniu, standing by, was visibly upset. She marched in front of Geng Haoshi. “Who is she to you? Why is she hanging onto you like this?”
He had forgotten that the village beauty was still there… Just as Geng Haoshi was about to respond, Li Shishi spoke up first. “Hello, I’m his fiancée.”
“Fiancée?!”
Xu Erniu, Miao Xiaohua, and Wang Xiaoyan all froze in place… Of course, Miao Xiaohua was equal parts shocked and delighted. She’d been busy arranging blind dates for her son, never expecting a daughter-in-law to fall from the sky.
The word “fiancée” made Xu Erniu’s eyes well with tears. She tried to hold them back, but they spilled over anyway… She strode up to Geng Haoshi, gave him a resounding slap, and sobbed, “Scoundrel!” Then she ran off, crying.
Geng Haoshi hadn’t even had time to process the sting of that slap when Li Shishi shook his arm vigorously. “Why did she call you a scoundrel? What exactly were you doing with her in that room just now?”
Miao Xiaohua, puzzled by Li Shishi’s question, chimed in, “Son, I heard something about ‘let me see your butt’ from outside the door… you didn’t really do anything to the girl, did you?”
“Oh, I almost forgot about that!” Li Shishi redoubled her grip on Geng Haoshi’s arm. “Tell us! Why did she want to see your butt? What exactly happened in there?”
“What a mess this is.” Geng Haoshi scratched his head. “Wait, how do you know she wanted to see my butt?” He eyed Li Shishi suspiciously.
“Uh…” Of course, Li Shishi couldn’t admit she’d been eavesdropping via the locator fiber in his clothes. “Never mind how I know!” She decided to turn the tables: “What matters now is—what exactly did you two do in the room?”
She released his arm, strode over to Miao Xiaohua, and wrapped her hands around the woman’s arm, fixing Geng Haoshi with a righteous stare. “Mom and I both want to know!”
Already calling her “Mom” so soon? Girl, you are something else! Geng Haoshi was stunned speechless.
“Well, after all my fussing, it turns out you already have a daughter-in-law?” Wang Xiaoyan said to Miao Xiaohua, a hint of reproach in her voice.

“I only just found out myself,” Miao Xiaohua replied with a guilty smile. “Look at how this turned out… Tell you what, when the time comes, I’ll send you extra wedding sweets, all right?”
Things being as they were, Wang Xiaoyan couldn’t say much more. “I’d better go see how Xu Erniu is doing.”
She headed off in the direction Xu Erniu had run, but paused to look back at Geng Haoshi. “Haoshi, you really didn’t do anything to the girl, did you?”
Wang Xiaoyan, too, had heard the phrase “let me see your butt” from outside. She and Miao Xiaohua had even wondered if this was some kind of modern matchmaking ritual among young people.
“Aunt Wang, I swear I didn’t do anything!” Geng Haoshi looked utterly innocent. If anything happened, it was Xu Erniu who had touched his butt.
Half-convinced, Wang Xiaoyan took her leave.
Li Shishi still had her hands wrapped around Miao Xiaohua’s right arm. Miao Xiaohua patted her hand softly with her left, her voice gentle. “Girl, it’s the dead of winter—aren’t you cold, wearing so little?”
Looking at Li Shishi’s thin outfit, especially the short skirt and long stockings, Miao Xiaohua felt cold just seeing her.
“Auntie, these are thermal. I’m not cold,” Li Shishi replied, warmed by Miao Xiaohua’s concern.
“Come, let’s go home,” Miao Xiaohua said eagerly, unable to wait to bring her “future daughter-in-law” home.
Watching the two of them walk arm in arm, Geng Haoshi stood in the wind, feeling utterly sidelined. After all this fuss, so he’d been nothing more than a bystander!
At the doorstep, Li Shishi suddenly remembered she’d left some things behind. She pulled out her phone and called her dedicated helicopter pilot. “Kim, come over here.”
Soon, her pilot Kim flew Li Shishi’s custom pink helicopter from Wang Xiaoyan’s rooftop to Geng Haoshi’s rooftop.
“Didn’t you say it broke down?” Geng Haoshi eyed Li Shishi with renewed suspicion. He was sure she hadn’t told the truth.
“…Don’t worry about the details,” Li Shishi replied quickly, looking away and whistling nonchalantly.
Geng Haoshi looked at the giant fan-shaped helicopter on the roof. “That thing’s so big—won’t it cave in the roof?”

“It won’t!” Li Shishi patted her chest with confidence. “This is the latest ultralight helicopter developed by our group’s research center. It weighs only a tenth of a regular small helicopter!”
“It’ll be fine! Our house may be single-story, but it’s built solid,” Miao Xiaohua assured him as well.
“Alright, as long as you’re happy.” Geng Haoshi could only sigh.
Miao Xiaohua led Li Shishi inside, poured her a cup of hot water, and couldn’t stop gazing at her—the more she looked, the more she liked this “future daughter-in-law.”
“Mum, stop staring at her… Look at me for a change,” Geng Haoshi joked, hoping to break the awkwardness for Li Shishi.
But his hopes were quickly dashed.
“What’s there to look at with you? Of course it’s me she wants to see,” Li Shishi said, grinning at Miao Xiaohua. “Right, Auntie?”
Miao Xiaohua laughed, clearly delighted. “Right, right.”
A short while later, two sharply dressed men in black suits entered, carrying armfuls of packages. They approached Li Shishi and bowed respectfully. “Miss.”
Li Shishi pointed to a corner. “Just put everything over there.”
The two men went in and out several more times. Soon, the wall adjacent to the inner room was nearly buried in a mountain of bags and boxes.
“Auntie, these are gifts I bought for you,” Li Shishi beamed at Miao Xiaohua.
“But you said you didn’t come here specially. So why did you prepare gifts?” Once again, Geng Haoshi eyed Li Shishi with suspicion.