Chapter 5: Guan Yizhou Is Here!

The living room went quiet for a moment.

Mrs. Qin frowned. "Run?"

"Yeah, run! Run away overnight!" Once Sui Yuanshan's train of thought got going, there was no stopping it. He stood up and gestured in the air with both hands.

"Our whole family moves abroad. Even if the Xie family has long arms, they can't reach overseas, right?

I have a friend in Switzerland. He invited me to stay before. The house is huge, plenty of room for us—"

"Sui Yuanshan." Mrs. Qin's voice turned cold.

"Hm?"

"You're the chairman of a publicly listed company. Your daughter gets picked by someone, and your first reaction is to run?"

Sui Yuanshan said with perfect righteousness, "What else? That's the Xie family! The Xie family of the Capital! You want me to go negotiate with the Xie family? I'm a small businessman. What do I have to negotiate with? The moment I walk in my legs go weak, and you want me to discuss marriage with them?"

Sui Nuo thought her dad had a point.

But she didn't dare say so.

Mrs. Qin rubbed her temples, feeling her blood pressure visibly spiking.

She took several deep breaths, finally calmed herself down, sat back on the sofa, and said in an exhausted tone, "Run. Where exactly can you run to? If the Xie family wants to find someone, it's no harder than crushing an ant.

Besides, all the Sui family's assets are in the country. What happens to those after we run? Just abandon them?"

Sui Yuanshan fell silent.

He knew Mrs. Qin was right. Running was just an unrealistic fantasy, an instinctive escape response when facing enormous pressure.

The family sat silently in the living room. The TV was on, but nobody watched.

A cooking show was playing. The host was enthusiastically introducing how to make braised pork: "First, we cut the pork belly into three-centimeter cubes—"

Sui Nuo stared at the TV screen, her mind a mess.

Her understanding of the Xie family was limited to vague impressions: very rich, very powerful, very terrifying.

How exactly terrifying, she couldn't say, but that terrifying atmosphere pressed down on her like a thick layer of dark clouds, making it hard to breathe.

"Um..." Sui Nuo spoke up quietly.

"Whose family is the person who got chosen? I mean, the person who chose me—who is he?"

Sui Yuanshan and Mrs. Qin exchanged a glance, both wearing a subtle expression.

Sui Nuo's heart sank.

Mrs. Qin weighed her words, trying to keep her tone gentle. "His name is Xie Jing. The Xie family's eldest grandson, raised personally by Old Master Xie."

Sui Nuo nodded, waiting for more.

"He's twenty-four this year."

Sui Nuo nodded again.

"In Capital circles, his reputation is... rather special."

Sui Nuo blinked. "Special in a good way?"

Mrs. Qin went silent.

Sui Yuanshan said quietly, "Nuo Nuo, Daddy will go pour you a glass of water."

Sui Xu stood up too. "Dad, I'll help."

Sui Nuo watched her dad and her sister practically flee into the kitchen, and that uneasy feeling in her chest grew stronger and stronger.

She turned to look at Mrs. Qin. Mrs. Qin's expression looked like she was doing difficult mental preparation. Finally she sighed and handed over her phone.

"See for yourself."

Sui Nuo took the phone. The screen showed a search engine page, and in the search bar were two characters: Xie Jing.

She hesitated for a moment, then tapped the search button.

When the number of search results popped up, Sui Nuo's eyes widened slightly.

A lot. A whole lot.

News articles, posts, forum discussions, social media analyses—an overwhelming flood, dense and packed. She casually tapped open the top post.

The title read: "That lord of the Capital's Xie family is causing trouble again."

The post listed in detail Xie Jing's "glorious deeds" from recent years:

Last March, at a club, because someone in the private room next door was too loud, he kicked the door open, dragged the person out, and threw him onto the street. The other party was the son of a publicly listed company's boss, and afterward he didn't dare make a peep.

Last July, at an auction, he competed with someone over a Ming dynasty porcelain piece. The other party raised their paddle, he raised the price. Back and forth over a dozen rounds. In the end he won it at three times the market price, then in front of everyone handed the porcelain to his lackey and said, "Here, play with it."

Last October, at a private banquet, a clueless guest made remarks about his father's past affairs at the table. He said nothing, stood up, walked over to the man, poured an entire bottle of red wine over his head, then smiled and said, "Go on."

Sui Nuo's breathing became a little difficult.

She kept scrolling. The further she read, the paler her face got.

Xie Jing, the Xie family's eldest grandson, the Xie Group's sole third-generation heir.

One hundred eighty-nine centimeters tall. Said to be extremely handsome, but with a temper so explosive that everyone in the entire Capital knew about it.

He treated everyone with impatience, never gave anyone face, and spoke and acted purely based on his mood.

If someone offended him, at best they'd be publicly humiliated. At worst, they'd be ruined so thoroughly they couldn't survive in the entire business circle.

He took over part of the Xie Group's businesses at twenty. His style was ruthless and decisive, never playing by the rules. Countless opponents had suffered at his hands.

The most outrageous part was that such a domineering person—nobody could touch him.

The Xie family's power was too great, their roots too deep. He could walk sideways, vertically, or backward through the Capital and nobody dared say a word.

Sui Nuo saw a news headline that read "The Capital's Most Untouchable Person—Xie Jing," with a photo of him attached.

In the photo, he stood at an angle beside a black Maybach, head down, lighting a cigarette.

His profile was sharp as a knife's edge—high brow bone, steep nose bridge, jawline clean as if cut with a blade.

Behind him stood a row of bodyguards in suits. He wore a black shirt, sleeves casually rolled to his forearms, revealing lean, powerful wrists. His whole being radiated a dangerous, captivating aura.

That kind of good looks was the kind you didn't dare look at directly. Not gentle, not refined—but a kind of aggressive, almost flamboyant handsomeness.

Sui Nuo stared at the photo for three seconds, then silently closed the page.

She handed the phone back to Mrs. Qin, her little face white as a sheet of paper.

"Mom," her voice floated a little, "this person... does he hit people?"

Mrs. Qin's mouth twitched. She wanted to comfort her daughter and say probably not, but the words died before they left her mouth.

Because in those posts she'd just read, it was written clearly—this person really did get physical, and he didn't hold back.

Mrs. Qin tried to stay composed. "Well... maybe his temper is only bad toward outsiders. With family he might be different?"

Sui Nuo looked at her mother with a hollow gaze.

"Mom, do you even believe that yourself?"

Mrs. Qin went silent.

When Sui Yuanshan and Sui Xu came out of the kitchen with glasses of water, what they saw was mother and daughter sitting across from each other in wordless silence.

Sui Yuanshan set the glasses on the coffee table and carefully studied his daughter's face. It was white as the day his investment failed—no, whiter than that day.

"Nuo Nuo?" Sui Yuanshan's voice trembled. "You finished reading?"

Sui Nuo nodded.

"How do you... feel?"

Sui Nuo opened her mouth, then found she couldn't find the right words to describe what she was feeling.

It wasn't that she'd never heard of wealthy family arranged marriages, but she'd always assumed those were TV drama plots, nothing to do with her.

Her life plan was simple: study hard, find an easy job after graduation, raise her succulents, go home on weekends for free meals, occasionally go shopping with her sister for pretty little dresses.

She'd never thought about marrying anyone, let alone marrying the most untouchable person in the Capital.

"Dad,"

Sui Nuo's voice was soft and light, carrying a faint, barely noticeable tremble.

"Does he really hit people? The post said he hit someone with a golf club today. Because that person broke his rules."

Sui Yuanshan's eyes instantly reddened.

He set down the water glass, plopped down beside his daughter, and held her small hands. Those hands were small and soft, like they hadn't fully grown, looking especially pitiful clutched in his big palms.

"Nuo Nuo," Sui Yuanshan's voice began to shake.

"How about... Daddy goes to talk to the Xie family, says we won't marry?"

Sui Nuo's eyes lit up. "Really?"

Sui Yuanshan didn't even have confidence himself, but still tried to straighten his back. "Daddy will give it a try."

"Try what?" Mrs. Qin said coldly.

"If you go now and back out, the Xie family will think you're playing them. You need to understand—in the eyes of people like that, our family assets amount to nothing.

If you don't want to marry Nuo Nuo off, fine. Then you go tell Old Master Xie yourself. You go."

Sui Yuanshan's straightened back collapsed again. His whole body slumped onto the sofa like his bones had been pulled out, and he muttered to himself,

"Old Master Xie... is that someone I can even meet? I can't even get past the lobby of the Xie Group building..."

Sui Xu stood to the side, biting her lip and thinking for a long time. Suddenly she weakly raised her hand.

"Um... should I... marry in Nuo Nuo's place?"

All three of them looked at her at once.

Sui Xu grew even more uncomfortable under their gazes. She shrank back, her voice growing smaller and smaller. "I just thought, we look alike anyway... they haven't seen the real person, so if we swap, they probably won't notice, right?

I read in that post that the guy has a bad temper. He probably won't even care what the bride looks like. Anyway, it's just... just marrying someone and putting them aside..."

Sui Nuo looked at her sister in disbelief.

Sui Xu was two years older than her, three centimeters taller, but ten times less brave.

Sui Xu blushed when speaking in crowds, got so nervous her palms sweated when someone looked at her. Send her to face the most terrifying person in the Capital, marry him in her place?

"Sis," Sui Nuo said quietly, "you don't even dare open the door when the delivery guy knocks."

Sui Xu's face went red.

Mrs. Qin took a deep breath. Her voice finally settled completely, carrying a kind of resigned calm. "Everyone stop arguing.

Things haven't reached that point yet. They only said to discuss the marriage first, not that we're marrying her off immediately.

We still have time. We can think of something else."

She checked the time and stood up.

"Nuo Nuo, don't go back to school today. Stay home.

Tomorrow I'll go ask a few family friends close to the Sui family, see if there's any way. Now all of you go to sleep. Nobody mentions running away again."