Chapter 406: What A Huge Honour For The Chang Family
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Ruan Zeer, on the other hand, was a downright nerdy scholar. He was the best person to study mathematics, but anything about business issues would be all Greek to him.
Thus, none of them knew anything about Qi Chenglin’s identity. They only felt that this family was extraordinary based on his temperament alone.
Qi Chenglin greeted them politely, but he knew Ruan Danchen would not be acquainted with others simply especially when they were playing arcade games, and besides, the kid had a strong vigilance towards strangers. Even though the kid accepted Song Yu and Ruan Danchen easily, those two were the exceptions, it did not mean that he would accept strangers easily too. Something must have happened here.
Qi Chenglin did not question them immediately and took the half bowl of mango pomelo sago from Qi Youxuan’s hands in silence instead.
“Dad, order it yourself, I’m not done yet!” Qi Youxuan puffed his cheeks immediately and glared at Qi Chenglin anxiously after his mango pomelo sago was pulled away from him, but he did not dare to snatch it back.
“It’s dinner time soon. You won’t have much appetite for dinner later if you eat so much now. It’s good enough for you to have a taste of desserts but you must have your proper meals,” Qi Chenglin finished the half bowl of mango pomelo sago in a blink of an eye and returned the empty bowl to Qi Youxuan.
“…” Qi Youxuan felt despondent as he stared at the empty bowl. Then, he noticed a leftover sago pearl in the bowl, which he picked up quickly and put it into his mouth. His unhappy expression induced pity and compassion, but at the same time he appeared like a loser too.
Ruan Zeer and Li Yiming could not bear the sight of Qi Youxuan’s expression, whereas Qi Chenglin merely felt speechless staring at his son.
“I always have proper meals,” Qi Youxuan protested.
Qi Chenglin raised his eyebrows and glanced at the minion toys which were placed on the ground beside their table. The toys were even placed inside a McDonald’s plastic bag which made the origin of the toys especially obvious.
Coincidentally, Qi Chenglin passed by a lot of McDonald’s restaurant with minion toys advertisement in Jinshi City today, so he was familiar with the toys at their table now.
“Well then, tell me what you ate in the afternoon,” Qi Chenglin had the “just you wait” look on his face as he pouted and stared at Qi Youxuan from the corner of his eye.
The kid’s spirit withered away immediately. This sort of junk food such as McDonald’s which lacked in nutrition was not considered as a proper meal for Qi Chenglin.
“Well, I’m so hungry right now since I didn’t have much dessert just now. Let’s go for dinner now!” Qi Youxuan said quickly. Then, he picked up the bag of minion toys and hugged it tightly in fear that Qi Chenglin may snatch it away.
Staring at his son who was acting like a loser now, Qi Chenglin pouted and ignored him as he was not bothered to argue with the likes of him.
“We’re going for dinner now. Come and join us,” Qi Chenglin invited Ruan Zeer and Li Yiming kindly.
Even though Qi Chenglin had no idea what had happened, he figured that the duo had given some assistance to Ruan Danchen and Qi Youxuan and thus was able to have afternoon tea together with them.
Qi Chenglin had to express his gratitude no matter what assistance they had given.
“No need,” Ruan Zeer and Li Yiming stood up and rejected since they had their afternoon tea.
Ruan Zeer and Li Yiming would not dare to accept the offer since they were just acquainted with the trio today.
“We’re going back home soon. Our family members will get worried if we return home late,” Ruan Zeer said and took his jacket off the chair.
Qi Chenglin nodded without insisting on his offer.
Qi Youxuan lifted his head and grabbed onto Ruan Zeer’s shirt. “Elder brother, give me your phone number.”
Ruan Zeer was slightly surprised at Qi Youxuan’s enthusiasm since they just met for the first time and he merely gave Qi Youxuan a small assistance. However, he liked the little kid so he typed his phone number into the kid’s Totoro-designed cell phone.
Qi Youxuan nodded. “Okay, so I’ll find you when I can’t solve any mathematics questions.”
“…” Ruan Zeer was left speechless.
This was the kid’s intention all along.
“Sure, no problem,” Ruan Zeer agreed without hesitation.
The duo bidded farewell with Qi Chenglin and his family before leaving the restaurant.
Qi Chenglin and his family decided to have their dinner in a Thai restaurant in the mall instead of going to any restaurant which was far away.
Qi Chenglin asked after they ordered the dishes. “What happened in the amusement arcade just now?”
Ruan Danchen was stunned upon hearing the question, and before she reacted to it, Qi Chenglin continued, “Otherwise how do you get to know the two teenagers?”
Ruan Danchen finally realized what Qi Chenglin was asking about, so she explained the situation regarding the granny and her grandson to him.
“It’s not a big deal, just that Qi Youxuan was wronged in this issue,” Ruan Danchen said.
“You did a good job,” Qi Chenglin commended Qi Youxuan with a smile on his face.
Even though Qi Youxuan had put this matter to rest, he still felt discomfort deep down in his heart. However, he was completely alright now that Qi Chenglin praised him and even consumed a large portion of dinner due to exhilaration instead.
None of them bothered about the granny and her grandson and had completely forgotten about it afterwards.
…
…
Today was Grandmother Chang’s birthday in a blink of an eye.
The Chang family had decided to celebrate Grandmother Chang’s birthday at Dynasty’s banquet hall in order to make it grand. The Chang family invited The Great Eight Families too, which they accepted the invitation as a token of respect.
The elders of The Great Eight Families would not attend the banquet itself. They would send the youngsters instead which were more than enough as a sign of respect.
The Chang family would not have such honour at normal times, but today was Grandmother Chang’s seventieth birthday which was also known as the platinum jubilee. Even though not all the members of The Great Eight Families would attend the banquet, they would send a few representatives from each family as their tokens of respect.
For example, Qi Zhongliang did not attend the banquet but he sent Qi Chengzhi and Song Yu as his representatives. Qi Zhongxun brought Guan Liya along to the banquet due to the rumours about Chang Jingqiu went to Qilin on purpose to court Qi Chenglin and even acted discourteous towards Ruan Danchen despite the fact that she was Ruan Danchen’s high school classmate.
Ruan Danchen did not mention anything regarding this matter to the Qi family. However, since this rumour went flying thick in the company and naturally, Qi Chengyue knew about this too.
Ruan Danchen would not notify the Qi family as it may appear that she was complaining to them.
However, the same did not apply to Qi Chengyue. Ruan Danchen was Qi Chenglin’s wife-to-be no matter what happened, and yet Chang Jingqiu acted rudely towards her. Had Chang Jingqiu ever given any consideration to the Qi family?
Moreover, Qi Chengyue had a bad impression of Chang Jingqiu, so she informed Qi Zhongxun and Guan Liya regarding this issue when she returned home from work.
Guan Liya had decided to attend the banquet and take a look at Chang Jingqiu after hearing about this issue. Furthermore, as Ruan Danchen’s mother-in-law, she had to stand on Ruan Danchen’s side and give her some support and encouragement.
Since Qi Zhongxun and Guan Liya had decided to attend the banquet, naturally Qi Chenglin did not need to attend too. However, he deemed it necessary to bring Ruan Danchen along to show off their affection publicly. Not only did he want Chang Jingqiu to give up, it would be best if he could make her feel ashamed too, thus he brought Ruan Danchen and Qi Youxuan along with him to the banquet.
Qi Chengyue, on the other hand, merely wanted to join in the fun so she insisted on bringing Cheng Dongge along too.
Since Qi Chengji was in the army, it was good enough for him to take military leave for own family issues. However, taking military leave just for Grandmother Chang’s birthday banquet was a little too much. There was no need for him to grace Grandmother Chang with his presence as she did not have that high of a reputation.
In the end, it seemed like the Qi family gave too much respect and honour to the Chang family.
Initially, Xia Wenna wanted to join in the fun too but Grandmother Qi stopped her as it would mean that almost all the members from the Qi family would grace Grandmother Chang with their presence. What a huge honour for the Chang family!
Grandmother Qi, Guan Liya and Xia Wenna would always gossiped together at normal times, so naturally Guan Liya told Grandmother Qi and Xia Wenna regarding Chang Jingqiu’s issue.
Grandmother Qi figured that the Chang family was indifferent than the rest after listening to the whole story. How good could the elders be if this was how they educate Chang Jingqiu?
Thus, Grandmother Qi did not have much respect for the Chang family. If it was not for Ruan Danchen, she would not even allow any members of the Qi family to attend Grandmother Chang’s banquet since there was absolutely no need to give them any respect at all.
…
…
Chang Zhiyuan and Chang Zhixing brought their wives respectively to welcome all the guests at the main entrance of the banquet hall.
Chang Zhiyuan was forty-six years old now. His eldest son went to England to further his studies last summer while his youngest daughter was studying in Jixia High School.
Chang Zhixing was forty-two years old now. It was not too late when he got married but his wife could not conceive for a long time after marriage. Grandmother Chang even wanted them to divorce just because of this issue which gave quite a lot of stress to Chang Zhixing’s wife, but after various methods and a great deal of effort and attempts, Chang Zhixing’s wife finally conceived when he was at the age of thirty-four years old. His son was seven years old now, which was about the same age as Qi Youxuan.
His wife conceived a baby at an advanced age after they had endeavoured for a couple years. Fortunately, his wife gave birth to a boy, which silenced Grandmother Chang and induced exhilaration in her. After that, Grandmother Chang’s attitude towards Chang Zhixing’s wife improved.
Naturally, the Chang family would love the grandson dearly since they had wished for a grandchild for so long. Grandmother Chang even pampered the grandson excessively to the extent of overindulging and spoiled him.
When Chang Zhiyuan saw that the Qi family sent so many representatives to attend the banquet and gave the Chang family such a huge honour, a wide grin broke across his face as he felt highly respected in the presence of other families now.
Qi Zhongxun and Guan Liya even attended the banquet despite the fact that they were seniors, unlike the other Great Eight Families who sent only the youngsters like Yan Beicheng and his gang as a token of respect to the Chang family.
Little did Chang Zhiyuan knew Qi Zhongxun and Guan Liya came all the way here just to give their daughter-in-law support and encouragement.
Chang Zhiyuan could not help but stare at Ruan Danchen when he was greeting Qi Chenglin.
Grandmother Chang was exasperated at the news regarding Qi Chenglin’s marriage and she had been talking about it repeatedly for these past few days. She was convinced that the coquette must had forced Qi Chenglin into marrying her and that was the reason why Qi Chenglin did not accept Chang Jingqiu in the first place.
However, now that Chang Zhiyuan saw Ruan Danchen personally, he felt that the young lady gave him a sense of comfort. She did not show off and was not overly gentle and quiet too. Everything about her was natural and poised without being ostentatious.
Chang Zhiyuan liked Ruan Danchen more than Chang Jingqiu if blood relation was disregarded. Both of them conducted themselves well in society, but Chang Jingqiu was more calculative and adept at schemes, and she always planned carefully before making any decisions. Her every words or actions would let others feel that she was not being entirely sincere at all.
However, Chang Jingqiu was his niece. Chang Zhiyuan would express his aversion if she was a stranger.
Thus, Chang Zhiyuan did not bother about Grandmother Chang and Chang Jingqiu’s comment on Ruan Danchen and treated her kindly instead.
Chang Zhiyuan would not mind Chang Jingqiu trying her best to win Qi Chenglin over if he was not married with Ruan Danchen at that time. Now, there was no need to destroy their family since they were officially married and even their son had grown up too.
“Congratulations on your marriage! Don’t forget to invite me to your wedding dinner!” Chang Zhiyuan congratulated them with a smile on his face.
“Of course,” Naturally, Qi Chenglin would not make Chang Zhiyuan feel embarrassed since he had taken the initiative to congratulate him openly, and especially when both of them had business cooperation.
Chang Zhiyuan and his wife, Mo Yuxin shook hands with Qi Chenglin and Ruan Danchen respectively. When Mo Yuxin noticed the blue diamond ring on Ruan Danchen’s left ring finger, her eyelids twitched in astonishment.
Mo Yuxin was unsure how impressive was the origin of the blue diamond, but even a normal blue diamond was worth a king’s ransom.
It seemed like Ruan Danchen was Qi Chenglin’s love of his life and the elders in the Qi family was very fond of her too, or else she would not wear such costly ring and acted so high profile.
As a matter of fact, Qi Chenglin wanted Ruan Danchen to put it on before they left the house.
He thought that since they were attending Grandmother Chang’s birthday banquet which was considered a big occasion, he wanted Ruan Danchen to put the ring on to show off to the Chang family.
Then, Chang Zhixing and his wife, Liu Xiangwen shook hands with Qi Chenglin and Ruan Danchen, and naturally, Liu Xiangwen noticed the ring on Ruan Danchen’s finger too.
The Qi family entered the banquet hall and there was no new guests which required their attention.
Liu Xiangwen then grabbed Chang Zhixing’s arm and said unhappily, “Did you notice the ring on Ruan Danchen’s finger? Why did she attend grandmother’s birthday banquet with such a high profile? Was she worried that the others were unaware of her identity status in the Qi family? Maybe she felt diffident and had to wear it on purpose to brag about her identity status.”
Mo Yuxin stared at Liu Xiangwen coldly. She snickered deep down as she truly felt a deep repugnance for Liu Xiangwen.
In the Chang family, Chang Yuehuan was Chang Zhiyuan’s sister who passed away and thus Chang Zhiyuan merely wanted to treat the orphan, Chang Jingqiu, well. Liu Xiangwen, on the other hand, got close to Chang Jingqiu only because of Grandmother Chang’s love for Chang Jingqiu and merely wanted to gain some benefits from her. Moreover, Liu Xiangwen did it purposely so that Grandmother Chang would feel happy and treated her better.
Liu Xiangwen did not have a high status in the Chang family due to her difficulty in conceiving a child at a younger age which induced loathe in Grandmother Chang. Moreover, Grandmother Chang despised her family due to the lack of reputation. If it was not for her family’s wealth, Grandmother Chang would not even allow her to marry into the Chang family.
Thus, Liu Xiangwen had no choice but to ingratiate Chang Jingqiu. Chang Jingqiu was smooth and slick in establishing social relations too in order to gain advantages from either parties, so she would not reject Liu Xiangwen’s active flattering. Thus, she built a harmonious relationship with Liu Xiangwen as if they were biological sisters.
Mo Yuxin would not mention anything since Chang Jingqiu was the daughter of Chang Zhiyuan’s deceased sister, but deep down, she detested Chang Jingqiu.
Mo Yuxin did not want to associate herselt too intimately with Chang Jingqiu due to her extremely calculative mind. It was difficult to say whether Chang Jingqiu was exploiting Liu Xiangwen for her own benefits or vice versa in her opinion, but Mo Yuxin would have goosebumps galore whenever she saw Chang Jingqiu and Liu Xiangwen closely associated with each other.
Mo Yuxin was getting extremely impatient at Liu Xiangwen’s jealousy tone now since there was no need to put all the blame on Ruan Danchen despite being envious.
Mo Yuxin fought the urge to yell at Liu Xiangwen that Ruan Danchen could wear the beautiful ring was all thanks to her man who bought it for her.
Liu Xiangwen did not even have the chance to show off since her man did not buy it for her!
However, Mo Yuxin kept all these to herself since both of them were sisters-in-law and today was Grandmother Chang’s birthday.
Thus, Mo Yuxin put on a flat expression and started chatting with Chang Zhiyuan, ignoring Liu Xiangwen completely.
“Keep those nonsense to yourself! It’s crowded here and there’s always a possibility that your nonsense will travel to the Qi family’s ears. What benefits will you gain from offending the Qi family?” Chang Zhixing was starting to get annoyed.
The Qi family was within Liu Xiangwen’s field of vision when she took a glance at the banquet hall.
The Qi family radiated an invisible aura in the banquet hall, which induced hesitation in other families to engage a conversation with them. They did not dare to act rashly and fought the urges to be acquainted with the Qi family even though they felt extremely anxious deep down.
However, members of The Great Eight Families such as Yan Beicheng and his gang walked over and joined the Qi family naturally, which formed an invisible force field around them. As a result, no one dared to get close to The Great Eight Families now.
Liu Xiangwen felt more envious when she noticed Ruan Danchen chatting calmly and happily with Yan Beicheng and his gang.
Ruan Danchen was born with a normal background unlike Liu Xiangwen, but how was she able to find such an awesome man with a kind family?
The Qi family was not bothered about Ruan Danchen’s background at all and did not give her the cold shoulder. Instead, Ruan Danchen was able to join in every occasion gracefully and chatted happily with all the members of The Great Eight Families as if she was closely associated with them. This scenery made Liu Xiangwen felt extremely unfair for her current life.
“There’s no one around us so who can hear our conversation? Besides, Mom clearly stated that she disliked Ruan Danchen, so what do I have to fear?” Liu Xiangwen said unhappily as she felt truly unfair deep down.
“That’s enough! I told you to keep all these to yourself and now you’re making it worse. Mom mentioned it at home and there’s no outsiders, but take a look at the situation now before you make any irresponsible remarks. How sure are you that none of your nonsense travelled to others’ ears? Do you think that you can even compare yourself with Mom?” Chang Zhixing rebuked Liu Xiangwen with lowered voice.
Liu Xiangwen felt disgraced when Chang Zhixing criticized her in the presence of Chang Zhiyuan and Mo Yuxin.
She recalled Qi Chenglin’s loving and caring attitude towards Ruan Danchen even though Qi Chenglin did not mention anything. The image of blue diamond ring on Ruan Danchen’s finger emerged in her brain and she took a glance at her own diamond ring. Even though the diamond on her ring weighed one carat, it appeared ordinary and bland as compared to Ruan Danchen’s blue diamond.
All of these induced jealousy and envious in Liu Xiangwen’s heart. Everything on Ruan Danchen was indicative of Qi Chenglin’s diligence and love for her.
However, Chang Zhixing scolded her in front of their family members.
Chang Zhiyuan whispered just as Liu Xiangwen was about to protest out of recalcitrance, “That’s enough, guests are coming.”
Liu Xiangwen pursed her lips tightly and exhaled heavily before standing still at Chang Zhixing’s side. Mu Huili, Fang Anci and Mu Huaisheng had arrived but Mu Sisi was nowhere to be seen.
Mu Sisi and Gao Jingqiu divorced not long ago and the outside world had no idea that she had a miscarriage which was all thanks to Gao Jingqiu. The public only remembered that she had copulations with a pervert whom she assumed was Qi Chengzhi and refused to let Qi Chengzhi go afterwards. None of them had forgotten about this issue since it happened only recently.
Thus, it was expected that Mu Sisi would not appear in public for quite a long time.
“Director Mu, Mrs. Mu, Mr. Mu. Welcome and thank you for coming, please come in,” Chang Zhiyuan greeted the trio politely.
Mu Huili and Fang Anci chatted with Chang Zhiyuan politely while Mu Huaisheng took a glance at Liu Xiangwen.
His glance gave Liu Xiangwen a shock. Did Mu Huaisheng overheard her complaint just now despite the lowered voice?
However, Mu Huaisheng shifted his gaze elsewhere momentarily as if nothing had happened.
Liu Xiangwen comforted herself to avoid overthinking regarding this issue as this was probably just a coincidence.
She did not dare to make any further remarks after the Mu family entered the banquet hall.
Mu Huaisheng noticed Ruan Danchen in the banquet hall from afar but he did not walk over to greet her. He was not an overly persistent man, or maybe his affection towards Ruan Danchen was not strong enough. He merely liked Ruan Danchen and wanted to start a relationship with her.
