Chapter 29 — Brother Su is Home
With the cast finalized, Qin Jiran's days became busier and busier. Although he would still make time to cook Su Yanyi dinner, they no longer saw each other as often.
Su Yanyi was troubled about one thing, and that was how to get her final two smile points.
【 Can the Auxiliary Assistance function help me make Qin Jiran smile? 】
Her expectations for the function had been raised by its success in helping her find an actress for Qin Jiran.
【 Dear Master, that won't work. Auxiliary Assistance can only play an auxiliary role, it cannot directly complete System Missions for you. 】
001 rebuffed with a head shake. Su Yanyi was a bit disappointed by 001's answer, but she had expected it. After all, the System Missions would be too easy if she could use Auxiliary Assistance to complete them.
The phone suddenly rang with a call from Mother Su.
"Mom, do you need something?" Even towards her own mother, Su Yanyi didn't show much enthusiasm. However, the tone of her voice was a touch warmer than usual.
"Do I need a reason to call my daughter? I think that women should be gentle and considerate. Men are attracted to that. You've been with Qin Jiran for so long now, and yet you're still so cold. What if he decides to abandon you?"
Mother Su was joking, of course, but her tone did reveal a dash of real disapproval. Mother Su was a lively woman, and Father Su wasn't bad either, so she couldn't understand why both of her children ended up being such cold icebergs.
Oh, and there was also that frigid son-in-law of hers too. Her family was going to get taken over by the icebergs soon.
"He won't," was Su Yanyi's assured reply. In her past life, that man had stayed by her side even when she was confined to bed as a human vegetable. He'd taken meticulous care of her.
She was treating him so well now, so why would he want to abandon her? He definitely wouldn't.
At the other end of the line, Mother Su rolled her eyes. Fine, suppose her daughter was right… but just who did her daughter inherit this level of self-confidence from, anyway?
Finally, she stopped joking around and told Su Yanyi the reason for her call.
"Xiao Yi, why don't you bring Jiran back for dinner tonight? Your brother is home."
"Alright," Su Yanyi agreed. She'd been wanting to talk to her brother Su Yanmo anyway. After she hung up, she gave Qin Jiran a call.
…..
Qin Jiran was in a middle of a meeting with the main cast when he heard his phone ring with the ringtone he'd specifically set for Su Yanyi. Immediately, he answered the call and quickly made a gesture to let the cast know that he had to step away for a bit.
"Yanyi," he greeted. Unlike before, he didn't ask if she needed something and just waited patiently for her to speak.
"Is it alright to have dinner with my family tonight?"
Saying that put Su Yanyi in a good mood. Her mother claimed that she wasn't gentle and considerate enough, but look at her now, she even knew to ask for Qin Jiran's consent. How was she not gentle and considerate?
The past Su Yanyi wouldn't have bothered to ask "is it alright?" so the current Su Yanyi really was quite satisfied with her own progress and performance.
"Okay."
In Qin Jiran's point of view… rather than thinking that she was asking for his consent, he believed she was actually implying that there was no room for disagreement. He still had the impression that she was a strong, decisive, and dictatorial woman.
In any case, he hadn't planned on rejecting in the first place.
…..
That night, Qin Jiran drove to Su Manor with Su Yanyi in his car. They seldom visited together, and just in general, the number of times Qin Jiran had visited was few. It wasn't because he didn't want to but because it seemed that Su Yanyi didn't like it when he did.
After he opened the car door for her and she got out, she didn't go straight into the manor like before. Instead, she stood by the car and waited for a moment before she slowly, very slowly, made her way to the manor entrance. Slightly caught off guard, Qin Jiran quickly recovered and quickened his pace to catch up with her.
Grandpa Su, Father Su, Mother Su, Brother Su, and Wang Zhirou were all waiting inside of the manor, and each one revealed a different expression when they saw Qin Jiran and Su Yanyi walk in together.
"Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Big Brother," Su Yanyi greeted first. Then, she went and took a seat on a side sofa. Although she completely ignored Wang Zhirou's existence and did nothing to hide her obvious disregard, no one was really surprised because Su Yanyi had always been this way.
It was as if in her eyes, Wang Zhirou and Qin Jiran were not a part of the family. However, the difference now was that only Wang Zhirou was being excluded.
Wang Zhirou was sitting beside Su Yanmo. Her eyes darkened slightly, but she regained her composure almost immediately and gave a gentle smile, as if she didn't mind at all.
Qin Jiran also gave his greetings. He said formally, "Grandfather, Father, Mother, Brother."
Just as Su Yanyi had done, he blatantly ignored Wang Zhirou. Thinking about what Wang Zhilin had done last time, his goodwill towards the Wang family had all but vanished.
The Su family naturally noticed the couple's indifference towards Wang Zhirou, but nobody spoke up. Speaking of couples, the Su family tradition was quite repressive.
Only marriage could completely set them free from the family's constraints. Otherwise, they would have no choice but to obey the elders' orders and change careers.
This resulted in the early marriages of the Su children, but to them, marriage was marriage and nothing more.
Father Su and Mother Su genuinely loved each other, while Brother Su and Su Yanyi were both obviously just trying to meet the family's obligations. The other family members knew this but turned a blind eye to it.
However, the neglection of Wang Zhirou and Qin Jiran by their respective spouses didn't mean that they were treated as complete strangers by the rest of Su family. Father and Mother Su wouldn't tell Su Yanmo to bring Wang Zhirou home for visits, and their attitudes towards her were rather indifferent, but they did treat Qin Jiran much better than they did Wang Zhirou.
Mother Su would worry about Su Yanyi's post-marriage life, but she kept silent about Su Yanmo's. It was easy to tell that the Su family was relatively satisfied with Qin Jiran, but not so much Wang Zhirou.
"Jiran, sit. Are you hungry? Dinner will start soon." Out of all the Su family members, Mother Su was the one who liked Qin Jiran the most.
"Okay."
Qin Jiran was sitting next to Su Yanyi. Although their positions appeared intimate, their bodies were actually not touching. This was how they normally interacted—seemingly intimate when in truth, there was always some degree of distance between them.
Mother Su peered at them from the corners of her eye and frowned a bit. Three years had passed, and yet the two were still like this.
She had assumed that disclosing their relationship would pull the two closer, but looking at them now, their progress didn't seem very ideal.
A cloud of worry hovered over Mother Su's heart. How long would she have to wait before she could see her daughter and son-in-law be in love?
Oh, and there was her son and daughter-in-law too. Thinking about them only worried Mother Su more. Although her daughter's marriage was problematic, her son's marriage was worse. Both Mother Su and Father Su had agreed that their eldest son and the Wang family's daughter were really ill-suited for each other.
RELEASE SCHEDULE: 5x a week until chapter 65. Currently spordiac due to school.