The June of Blossoming Yearning

The next day

The rich and elite of Beijing all arrived one by one in their luxury cars at the Nuo Beijing hotel for the union of the Chu and the Fang family. The guests had all dressed up exquisitely, carrying with them thick red envelopes with intricate golden patterns.

The hotel was extravagantly decorated with white sheer curtains and crystals shaped in the patterns of raindrops. There were exquisite hanging chandeliers, here and there. Intricately designed glass ornaments were placed as decorations.

Shen Zichen looked at them and thought : Are children not invited to the wedding?

The entirety of the Chu and Fang family had booked out all the rooms in the hotel so that they could dress up conveniently and stay the night.

Even the wedding couple had a honeymoon suite booked for the night.

The families wanted the couple to go overseas for honeymoon but Chu Ruilin had flat out denied, saying with an expressionless face, that he had two major surgeries to perform the week after the wedding.

Chu Ruilin was one of China's most talented Neurosurgeon. He was a prodigy in his field, performing his first surgery at the age of 28. He was a rare genius.

As Shen Zichen was fixing up his tie in his room, he realised that he hadn't seen Chu Ruilin in a long time. He had been busy with his college entrance exams while that man had been busy with attending conventions and performing surgeries.

They clearly lived in the same house, yet hadn't even managed to catch a glimpse of the other person in a while.

Lost in his thoughts, he walked out of the door only to rush into a very familiar person.

It was Chu Ruilin.

Not the groom Chu Ruilin but the doctor Chu Ruilin.

He was dressed in his standard work outfit that consisted of a crisp pure white dress shirt, black pants and shiny leather shoes. The only thing missing was his white doctor's coat.

Seeing him like this, Shen Zichen was slightly stunned.

He thought dumbly: Is the person getting married today not Chu Ruilin? Does the Chu family have another Chu Ruilin hiding somewhere?

Looking at Chu Ruilin's stunning face which appeared haggard at the moment with disheveled strands of hair covering his eyebrows. He had another very crazy thought :Does this person want to elope with me on his wedding day?

He mentally gave himself a crisp slap on the face.

While Shen Zichen was fighting the demons in his mind , Chu Ruilin seeing him staring dumbly at him finally got impatient and asked, "Where's my wedding suit?"

Shen Zichen came back to earth. But he was struck dumb again by this question.

What's the wedding suit got to do with him? He's not the groom. Neither is he the groom's best man.

"You don't know where your wedding suit is? " came Shen Zichen's confused voice.

"No", replied Chu Ruilin curtly.

Shen Zichen, "oh".

A silence spread in the air.

Finally, Shen Zichen spoke in a fed up tone, "Did you just arrive here, now?"

Chu Ruilin: "There was an emergency at the hospital, I had to leave"

Shen Zichen was aware of how seriously the man infront of him took his work. So he didn't waste time asking any stupid questions like ' Its your wedding day, did you really had to go?' 'Are you the only neurosurgeon left in this vast metropolitan city of China?'

He just told the man to come inside his room to freshen up, while he went out to inquire about the wedding suit.

15 minutes later, Shen Zichen walked back to his room with a garment bag and box of dress shoes in his hand.

He had informed the members of the family about the situation with Chu Ruilin and had gotten a verbal beating from them on behalf of him.

He could only placate them by telling them that he'd assist Chu Ruilin in getting dressed up swiftly and bringing him out as soon as possible.

Hence, he suddenly took on the responsibilities of a best man to the groom Chu Ruilin.

He sighed once every 3 breaths on his way back to the room.

When he came back to his room, he heard the sound of water coming from the washroom.

Keeping the things in his hand down on the table. He waited for Chu Ruilin to come out.

2 minutes later, Chu Ruilin walked out from the washroom wearing a white bathrobe. There were droplets of water sliding down from his forehead down to his cheeks.

Shen Zichen looked at that slender and tall figure. He felt that the man looked so enticing wearing only a bathrobe. Did he really have to assist him in wearing those luxurious clothes? That man didn't need to wear them. He could perhaps assist him in untying the sash of that bathrobe around his waist. What lay beneath should be even more enticing, right?

Shen Zichen swallowed subconsciously. There was a fire burning in two vital places of his body- His groin and his heart.

Chu Ruilin was like the untouched snow on the tallest mountaintops. He couldn't touch him. He could only watch as the pure white snow illuminated under the sun's rays. He convinced himself that it didn't matter, that there were other shorter mountains in this world.

Pouring himself a glass of water from the bedside table. He tried his hardest to suppress the fire burning his insides. He hid all traces of what emotions were churning inside him from his face.

With a slight smile on his face, he walked up to the table and unzipped the garment bag. He took out the custom made tuxedo from it and placed it neatly on the table.

Maintaining that smile, he walked up to Chu Ruilin and mechanically helped him get ready.

Chu Ruilin silently let him assist. Looking into the mirror, Chu Ruilin felt a little weary. Today was his wedding day but he didn't have that blushing glow common to the bridegrooms on his face.

He'd met Fang Yunzhu thrice before today. The first time he met her was when his father announced that she was going to be his future wife. The second time was a private meet between them, where Fang Yunzhu had told him that she had a lover who was a receptionist in one of the Fang family's companies. Her parents would never allow her love story with that receptionist with a poor background to bloom, so she had no choice but to follow up with her family's request to Chu Ruilin. It was quite a dramatic sob story. When Chu Ruilin heard this, he cursed the elite class in his mind.

He thought, cliche.

But the situation worked in his favour. He never had any notions related to romance in his entire life. He was aware of the fact that he wouldn't make a good lover. He didn't want to disappoint any woman, the same way his mother was disappointed by his father.

He didn't have much memories of his mother. But in the few memories he did have, her mother's beautiful face was always stained with tears. She withered away like this, leaving him in his second year of elementary school. The life in her eyes had vanished long before she died, her eyes vacant, her cheekbones hollow.

So, the fact that the woman seated infront of him, had no expectations of him made him feel relieved. Together they decided to treat this marriage as a marriage only on paper. To remain no different from cordial business partners.

The third time he met her was during the tea ceremony when they got engaged.

The fourth time would be today when he'd be getting married to her.

Both families had reluctantly agreed to Chu Ruilin and Fang Yunzhu's request to simplify the wedding as much as possible. Neither party was willing to follow through days of Chinese rituals and traditions. Hence, they decided to have a simple western wedding.

The scale of the wedding, however was still quite large.

Finally having completed dressing up with the help of Shen Zichen, Chu Ruilin looked at his reflection in the mirror.

The man in the mirror looked quite regal.

Looking into the mirror, his gaze met the youth's who was standing behind him, quietly observing.

Turning around, he spoke, "Let's go".

However before he could walk out, his wrist was grabbed by a warm hand.

Looking inquiring at Shen Zichen, Chu Ruilin saw him holding a boutonnière made up of beautiful pure white flowers.

"You forgot this", came the youth's soft voice.

Releasing Chu Ruilin's wrist from his grip, he walked closer to the man and neatly arranged the boutonnière on the lapels of his tuxedo.

Watching the clean white of the flowers complimenting the man's unblemished skin, Shen Zichen thought, looks good.

However, when he thought about the circumstances in which that boutonnière would be taken off that man's lapels today on his wedding night, he suddenly found that it was rather ugly looking on that man.