Chapter 277: Trifle
Just as the Li family hoped, that night, their eldest son who was an eternal bachelor finally brought home the daughter-in-law whom everyone had been looking forward to seeing.
Drawing lessons from the previous few times, this time Grandpa Li personally spoke, telling Youngest Aunt Li to be restrained and not talk about this and that. It would be bad if they scared the granddaughter-in-law who hadn't officially married into the family, causing detours in the road to marriage.
Youngest Aunt Li nodded earnestly. As a result, she saw their eldest nephew, who had always been expressionless, enter the door holding Tao Mu's hand with a foolish grin on his face. And there was a ring made of tissue paper wrapped around his ring finger, which he clearly treated as something precious.
"Our CEO Tao proposed to me." At the dinner table, Li Xiaoheng cleared his throat and announced calmly.
Everyone in the Li family was in an uproar. Little Sister Li, who was the most impatient, kept asking: "Marriage proposal? Did Brother Mu propose first? When did it happen? Jow come we don't know!"
"Today! On the way back!" Li Xiaoheng said, then suddenly remembered something. He took out a ticket from the pocket of his suit jacket, spread it out carefully, and showed it to everyone: "At that time, there were traffic policemen to testify for us!"
There was a sudden silence at the dinner table. Everyone in the Li family looked at each other. Wasn't this witness and evidence a little…..unique?
The Li family looked at Li Xiaoheng and hesitated to speak. In fact, everyone was very smart, they have already figured out how this ticket came about from Li Xiaoheng's few words. But seeing Li Xiaoheng's appearance, everyone shook their heads in their hearts, wisely not revealing the truth.
The juniors of the Li family immediately took out their mobile phones and logged on to FlyNews.com to search for relevant news. Sure enough, the news that Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng were fined by the traffic police for proposing marriage on the street had become a trending search. The several juniors waggled their eyebrows at each other, and finally congratulated their eldest brother tacitly——someone finally wanted him!
The Li family had always been very enthusiastic towards Tao Mu. But this time Tao Mu overcame the fear of being urged to marry, and also intended to please the Li family elders, so the atmosphere of the dinner was very pleasant.
After the meal, Tao Mu sat at the Li family home for a while and ate some fruit before being sent home by Li Xiaoheng himself——to be precise, the house where Liu Yao and Meng Qi lived. That way, they could let them know that the elders of the Li family would come to visit and discuss the specific matters of the engagement ceremony.
Liu Yao, Meng Qi and old Mr. Song had accepted the fact that they had come out publicly during Tao Mu's live broadcast. But they didn't expect Tao Mu to be so anxious. It had only been a few days since he announced his relationship, and it had now progressed to the point where there was talk about marriage.
Liu Yao was furious: "How old are you this year? Have you reached the legal age for marriage? Propose what marriage?"
"That's why we are discussing the engagement ceremony." Tao Mu answered with a smile: "Otherwise, we would directly discuss the wedding ceremony."
Liu Yao was so angry that he clutched at his chest with his hands, as if the stupid son he had worked so hard to raise was taken away by a wolf with a big tail——and the stupid son in question couldn't wait to pack up his luggage and follow along.
Sure enough, boys don't want to stay when they grow up (TN: usually a phrase used for daughters)! Liu Yao glared at Li Xiaoheng. No matter how he looked at it at this moment, Li Xiaoheng didn't inspire any happy feelings in him. Meng Qi also felt conflicted. He didn't expect his son to be so unable to figure things out, why get married so early? Didn't he know that men become different from when it was just dating once getting married!
Liu Yao, who was originally glaring at Li Xiaoheng, twitched his ears, and turned his head suddenly: "What do you mean? You think that after getting married, I am different from before we got married? Xiao Qi, this is how you see me?"
Meng Qi was about to join hands with his husband to put some sense in their stupid son! Unexpectedly, just saying an unclear word, there was now infighting within the husband and husband alliance. He hurriedly appeased: "Isn't it! After we got married, you treat me much better than before. But aren't our situation part of the minority? Most men won't be as good as you after they get married."
Li Xiaoheng quickly expressed his opinion: "I will definitely learn from Uncle Liu, and I will definitely treat Tao Mu even better after marriage."
Li Xiaoheng brought tea and water to the two fathers with lowered eyes and submissive manners, and even went to massage old Mr. Song's shoulders and back. The picture of a filial son and a virtuous grandson.
The three finally felt a little more appeased after seeing this. It was not because Li Xiaoheng was willing to please them. The main reason was that if a man couldn't even put on a good attitude when he visited the future in-laws when the relationship had just been confirmed, it proved that the man didn't really care about his partner that much. Then how dared they hope that this man would treat his partner better after marriage?
Just like before when Tao Mu was not ready to discuss marriage with Li Xiaoheng, he was very rejectful of the Li family's overt urgings of marriage. But once he made up his mind, he would be very obedient and patient when he came to the door again, and he would take the initiative to make the Li family elders happy. This was exactly the same.
Moreover, the news about Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng's marriage proposal had already become the top trending search. It was reasonable for the Li family to offer to visit and discuss the engagement ceremony. So Liu Yao, Meng Qi and old Mr. Song didn't really have any disagreements. It was just the pride of the elders at play here. After being prideful, they must still get down to business.
In fact, the public opinion on the Internet about Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng's public relationship was mixed. Although the "Same-Sex Marriage Law" had been passed in China, and the attitude towards homosexuality on the Internet had been very tolerant in the past two years, however in the real society, the attitude of not accepting or rejecting was the mainstream. So after the live broadcast ended, netizens and fans who heard the news left messages under Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng's FlyNews. Among them, there were those who support the two, and naturally there were also those who criticize and oppose. Not to mention that there were also a group of fans who claim to be Tao Mu's boyfriend fans and girlfriend fans. After learning that their idol came out and announced his relationship, they cried and said on the Internet that they would un-fan.
However, this kind of situation, after FlyNews.com, together with all subsidiaries of Fengxing Group, Litao.com, BulletScreen.com and Xiaoheng Capital, as well as all cooperative brand merchants who were willing to join in the fun, began online and offline price reduction promotions and member registration benefits, as well as a series of publicity and promotion activities on FlyNews such as gifting of randomly star-signed posters with the message wishing the "Taoli Couple" a happy marriage, was effectively curbed.
Probably because of the simple value of "accepting people's benefits and returning the favor", the netizens who benefited began to praise and bless the relationship between the two, even those who rejected and opposed them began to remain silent. In addition, Meng Qi supervised FlyNews.com and FlyNews Entertainment to continuously guide public opinion, and the relatives and friends who were close with Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng also came forward to express their blessings. There were even well-wishing starlets and bosses also publicly expressing their views——
The most amazing example being the husky Long Tianao who, relying on his family's elder being the largest shareholder of Summer Star Entertainment, after convincing most of the company's stars, he took the initiative to send a FlyNews to express his attitude. As long as the fancy blessings and rainbow farts for the Taoli couple tying the knot reached 10 million, he would live broadcast the company's team building activity as a benefit. And this year's Summer Star Entertainment's team building activity was impressively a swimsuit party held on a private island.
As soon as this news came out, most of the star-chasers on the Internet went crazy. Not to mention that after Long Tianao, Luo Xi, the beautiful lady CEO of Longteng Entertainment, also joined in the fun, expressing her willingness to jointly organize the team building activity with Summer Star Entertainment. Even Zhou Yanqing, Fang Ruoti and other A-list superstars who were far away in Hong Kong also expressed that in order to celebrate their friend's love, they were willing to give out 100 concert tickets as benefits. Now, the other half of the online star-chasers could no longer keep calm. After all, the lives of Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng were too far away from them, and compared with other people's affairs, getting the coupons and benefits in hand was more practical and important.
It was worth mentioning that the companies under the two bosses that should have been affected by their coming out, but because of this wave of joint promotional activities, its publicity skyrocketed within a few days, and even Fengxing Group and Xiaoheng Capital's shares went up two percent. This unexpected joy made the companies grin from ear to ear. They felt more and more that their boss was a lucky star. There were even some employees secretly guessing in private that the reason why the two families were so anxious to discuss the engagement ceremony was probably because they have seen the related interest growth points. Otherwise, the two bosses were already too busy solving the public relations crisis, so how would they have the leisure to organize the engagement ceremony?
As for other giants in the business world, after witnessing the grand sales phenomenon created by the joint efforts of the companies on both sides, what they only cared about was whether this powerful marriage alliance would affect the existing interests of all related industries. Would it hurt their vested interests, or whether they could also join in the fun and get a share of the pie…..In front of profits and benefits, who cared about the trivial matter of Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng being gay.
Under such circumstances, even before the elders of the Li family and Tao Mu's family handed out invitation letters, old friends and business partners of the two families called to congratulate. They also took the initiative to ask about the specific time of the engagement ceremony, and they all said that they would definitely make a trip on that day to participate in the two children's engagement ceremony.
The Li family was a wealthy and affluent business family. Tao Mu was not only the most topical star actor in the past two years, but also a boss worth tens of billions. Both parties attached great importance to this marriage. What was more, there were so many old friends and business partners coming to the engagement ceremony. In the outside world, all the entertainment media and financial media, as well as Tao Mu's fans and FlyNews.com netizens were paying close attention to the actions of the two sides. One could imagine how much the elders of the Li family and Tao Mu's family cared about this ceremony. And this kind of care was finally reflected in every process of the engagement ceremony, including the number of repeated tasting of even the small confectionery at the ceremony.
As a result of these many tedious and complicated details, Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng's schedule was very full——after all, announcing their relationship publicly was done on the spur of the moment. After the two of them acted on a whim, they were shocked to find that they could not clear the schedule to accompany the elders in finalizing the details of their own engagement ceremony.
So after Tao Mu and Li Xiaoheng discussed, they finally handed over the preparation of the engagement ceremony to the two sides' elders. And one went back to work at Xiaoheng Capital and the other at the filming studio.
Learning of CEO Tao's successful marriage proposal, all the actors and staff of "Soldier Elite" raised funds and ordered a big cake to celebrate for Tao Mu. During this period, Cheng Yi, who had promised to make a tailor-made single for Tao Mu, also flew to the mainland at Tao Mu's invitation.
The well-known top tier music producer in China was well aware of the truth that a promise was worth a thousand pounds of gold. Although he said he was reluctant, in fact, he had already begun to compose lyrics and music according to Tao Mu's timbre characteristics as early as after agreeing to compose for Tao Mu. It took a long time, and finally he polished a work that made him very satisfied. However, what Cheng Yi didn't expect was that Tao Mu would refuse!!!
TN: VCF chapters will be back to updating on this site only. Read the changes here. Many thanks and apologies~♡🙌🙏
If you would like to show some ♡ then please consider supporting this translator! ლ(⌒εー)ლ