Please Marry Me (GL) - Chapter 2
The rain outside had only just stopped when it began again. It grew heavier and heavier until, within moments, it was pouring.
After hanging up the phone, Jiang Yi had barely stepped out when Song Rao’s parents announced that dinner was ready and urged her to come eat.
Unable to resist Uncle and Auntie’s enthusiasm, Jiang Yi could only agree.
Once there was a first time, naturally there was a second. Song Rao’s parents said they had not seen her in far too long, and since it was raining, they hoped she would stay and chat with them for a while.
Because of the weather, Song Rao could not go to the laboratory that day either. After giving her students a few instructions, she came over and sat down on the living room sofa.
“What were you talking about? Why are you smiling so happily?”
A faint smile appeared on Jiang Yi’s face. “We were talking about the time you got chased by a dog when you were little.”
Mother Song laughed so hard she could barely close her mouth.
“You came crying to me and said a dog had bitten you. When I went to look, I discovered it was a two-month-old puppy whose teeth hadn’t even fully grown in yet.”
Song Rao’s expression immediately darkened. Refusing to listen to another word, she strode back to her room.
By nine that evening, Uncle and Auntie had basically gone to bed.
Jiang Yi received another call from Shen Siyun and had no choice but to go out onto the balcony to answer it.
Outside, the wind was fierce and the rain fell in scattered bursts. Shen Siyun’s voice came through the phone.
“Why didn’t you go back?”
Jiang Yi immediately thought of the bag Shen Siyun had bought her.
Requiring her to sign for it in person meant she had to return—return to a place where Shen Siyun could keep her under control.
Suppressing the discomfort rising inside her, she explained gently, “The rain is too heavy. I couldn’t go back. Besides… I wanted to spend some time with my best friend.”
“Heh. You really have a lot of little tricks.”
That soft scoff drained all the color from Jiang Yi’s face.
“What… do you mean?”
The woman on the other end sounded colder.
“I didn’t expect you to learn how to play hard to get too. Are you trying to make me jealous, or are you hoping I’ll agree to marry you? Save it. You’re nothing more than my…”
Halfway through, the woman on the other end seemed to realize that the words were too hurtful and abruptly stopped.
“I’m nothing more than the lover you keep, is that it?”
Jiang Yi finished the sentence for her, forcing an ugly smile onto her lips.
She struggled to maintain her composure and keep herself from crying, but a choked sob still slipped through to the other end of the call.
“Jiang Yi…” The woman fell silent for several seconds, and her tone seemed to soften. “Can you just be a little more obedient?”
Her only response was the sound of the call ending.
Wiping away her tears, Jiang Yi turned to go back into the room. Just as she was about to enter, she remembered that Song Rao was inside, so she changed direction, intending to go to the bathroom and quietly work through her grief alone.
Before she could turn away, however, Song Rao happened to open the door.
Seeing Jiang Yi’s reddened eyes and the phone still clutched in her hand, Song Rao’s brows drew tightly together. Her expression darkened at once, and she pulled Jiang Yi inside.
“Did she say something awful to you again?” Song Rao led her to the bed and made her sit down.
Jiang Yi recounted everything that had just happened in full.
Shen Siyun’s words felt like a wad of cotton lodged in her throat, making it so difficult to breathe that she nearly suffocated.
“She talks to you like that, so why do you still like her?” Song Rao could not understand it at all.
Jiang Yi accepted the tissue she offered. Tears kept spilling from her eyes.
At the question, she fell into a daze, and her memories suddenly returned to her university days.
Shen Siyun was the heir to Jiayu Commerce Group. Once, she had visited Jiang Yi’s university to give a presentation about the company’s culture and graduate recruitment.
Jiang Yi had been deeply captivated by the confident, coolly beautiful Shen Siyun standing on the stage.
At the time, many people were discussing who this young woman was. When they learned that she was the eldest daughter of Jiayu Commerce, they became even more eager.
While everyone else was talking about attending Jiayu Commerce’s recruitment interviews the next day in hopes of gaining an advantage through proximity, Jiang Yi was already lying in Shen Siyun’s bed.
Perhaps it had been the recklessness of youth.
Shen Siyun had merely crooked a finger, and Jiang Yi had lost her senses and followed her.
After that night, Shen Siyun seemed to develop a taste for her and wanted to maintain their relationship. She brought over an agreement and asked Jiang Yi to sign it.
When Jiang Yi saw the words “financial arrangement,” she barely managed to pull her reason back from the brink and did not sign immediately.
“I’m unmarried. I’m not seeing anyone. You’re the first.”
Jiang Yi admitted that Shen Siyun was exceptionally skilled at bewitching people.
Those words echoed in her ears, and within two days, she signed the agreement as though possessed, clinging to the hope that she was the exception.
She stayed at Shen Siyun’s side for two years.
…
Her mind returned to the present.
Looking at the howling wind and rain outside the window, Jiang Yi slowly closed her eyes.
“Maybe… I was bewitched back then.”
Song Rao could not relate.
“So what are you going to do now? Keep enduring it?”
Jiang Yi shook her head. “I don’t know either.”
“Jiang Yi, I have an idea.”
Song Rao picked up an enamel tea mug and took a sip. Then, without hurry, she explained her plan.
“You mean… a marriage of convenience?”
It was not that Jiang Yi had never heard the term before.
In fact, before same-sex marriage had become legal, some gay people had chosen marriages of convenience to placate their families, though they had always married someone of the opposite sex.
“If you want to legally marry me for real, I don’t mind either. As far as I’m concerned, love ultimately comes down to two people partnering up and living together.”
Song Rao set down the tea mug she had used for more than a decade and pulled over a chair.
Before speaking again, she carefully considered her words.
“Look. She doesn’t care about your feelings at all. To put it bluntly, maybe she’s only playing with you. I know you still have that tiny bit of hope left for her. Since that’s the case, let’s put on a show for her. If she truly cares about you, then this performance will mean something, won’t it? And I happen to need a marriage to shut up my parents and all those relatives.”
That way, people would stop gossiping that she was going to remain unmarried just because she was busy with research.
“But what if she flies into a rage? I still have an agreement with her.” That was what worried Jiang Yi as well.
“How many years are left on the agreement?” Song Rao asked. “How much money is involved?”
Jiang Yi bit her lower lip.
“Only a few days. The agreement we signed back then was for two years.”
She was afraid Shen Siyun would no longer want her, refuse to renew the agreement, or replace her with someone else.
Yet she was also afraid Shen Siyun would ask her to renew it, because if she did, it would mean they could only continue their arrangement as patron and kept lover, with no possibility of ever becoming anything more.
That was the source of her conflict.
Song Rao thought for a moment.
“Take the next few days to consider it. If you decide to go along with my plan, then on the day your agreement ends, we’ll register our marriage. The next day, we’ll hold a wedding banquet.”
“Can we really do that?” Jiang Yi asked uneasily.
Song Rao stood, placed both hands on her shoulders, and said, “Trust me. I’ve conducted countless experiments, and I know every parameter involved in each one. This time is no exception. Nothing will go wrong.”
…
The next day, the skies cleared.
After being washed by the rain, Haizhe carried a fresh, clean scent.
Jiang Yi took a taxi back to the apartment. She had only just put down her bag when someone rang the doorbell.
Standing outside was a representative from the luxury handbag brand Shen Siyun had mentioned the previous day. They had come specifically to deliver the bag and obtain Jiang Yi’s signature.
Jiang Yi accepted it and signed her name.
“Thank you.”
Her phone rang again.
Without even looking, Jiang Yi knew it was Shen Siyun.
Remembering what Shen Siyun had said the night before, she resisted answering.
But the woman on the other end kept calling again and again with remarkable patience.
Jiang Yi lay on the bed, staring at the bright white ceiling.
With every ring, an illusion slowly took root inside her—the illusion that Shen Siyun was yielding to her.
Clinging to that illusion, Jiang Yi finally could not stop herself from answering.
“Jiang Yi, did you receive the bag? Do you like it?”
Shen Siyun spoke as though she had completely forgotten the previous night’s phone call.
Jiang Yi could not tell whether she was lowering her head because of what had happened or whether there was some other reason.
She even felt irritated by Shen Siyun’s vague attitude.
“I received it,” she replied dully.
“Do you like it?” The woman on the other end insisted on an answer.
Jiang Yi had no choice but to look at the bag.
Perhaps she had seen and used too many bags over the past two years. She no longer felt much about them.
Still, she gave a vague hum of acknowledgment.
“As long as you like it. Jiang Yi, I’ll be back in half a month. Big Sister misses you very much.”
Shen Siyun’s sweet talk was perfectly practiced, as though coated in honey.
Jiang Yi nearly sank into it again.
“The new agreement is in the drawer. Sign it when you have time, all right?”
Jiang Yi abruptly tightened her grip on the phone, disbelief filling her eyes.
Although she had already prepared herself mentally, only when she truly heard the words did she realize how different the pain felt.
That tiny bit of hope she had carried since their first meeting at university finally shattered in that moment.
She had once believed she was unique.
Only now did she realize that, in the end, she had been nothing more than a joke.
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