He picked up his chopsticks and began to eat.
In the kitchen, the sound of quiet voices had been going since Guiying sat down.
The maids moved around each other, carrying dishes and washing up, and one of them had opinions she had apparently decided were too pressing to keep to herself.
"Was the Young Master not supposed to marry the Gu family's oldest daughter?" Xiaofang said, keeping her voice low but not low enough. "She is an Omega, proper family, good standing. Why would he leave that and come home with some country bumpkin he picked up off the street? He is scrawny, he smells, it is embarrassing honestly. There are far better options out there."
Linying glanced toward the dining room door and said carefully, "Country bumpkin is a bit much, don't you think? He is the master's wife. And he is pretty. He smells nice too. If we are going by looks alone she honestly cannot compare. The master is rich enough that he does not need to marry purely for status."
Xiaofang scoffed. "What are you talking about, Linying? Get your facts straight. How do you just come home and marry something like that when—"
A loud sound came from directly behind her.
She turned around.
Mrs. Chen was standing in the kitchen doorway.
The kitchen went completely silent.
Mrs. Chen looked at Xiaofang with the calm, unhurried expression of someone who had already decided exactly what she was going to say and was in no rush to say it.
"You seem to have a great many opinions about Master Xue," she said. Her voice was even and quiet, which somehow made it worse. "I will make sure to relay them to the Young Master when he returns this evening." She tilted her head slightly. "You speak as though you are the one marrying into this household. Tell me, do you even have the standing to marry anyone of substance? Do you?" She let the question sit for a moment. "You are a maid with an extraordinarily large sense of pride. Before you open your mouth about someone else, I suggest you take a long look at yourself first."
Xiaofang opened her mouth.
Mrs. Chen looked at her.
She closed it again.
"Get back to work," Mrs. Chen said. "All of you."
Meimei, Linying and Rourou dropped their heads and returned to their tasks without a word.
Xiaofang turned back to the sink, her jaw tight, and said nothing.
One thing was clear. She was losing this job.
On the thirty second floor of the Liu Group headquarters, the boardroom had emptied and Liu Liuxian had retreated to his private office. He sat behind his desk with a stack of documents open in front of him, his assistant seated across from him with a tablet and a pen, ready to take notes.
The documents were important ones. Contracts, projections, a merger that had been in negotiation for the better part of six months and was finally approaching its conclusion. Liuxian turned the pages with the focused efficiency of a man who read quickly and retained everything, annotating in the margins without slowing down.
He was going to be busy for the next few days. He had known that going into the morning. What he had not known, going into the morning, was that he would be ending the day as a married man.
He turned another page.
His family was going to be a problem. They had been on his case about marriage for the better part of two years, a relentless and coordinated campaign waged across family dinners, phone calls, and the occasional ambush disguised as a casual visit. He had gotten married, in no small part, to put an end to it. The fact that his husband was an illegitimate child from a family of no particular standing, and ten years his junior, was the kind of detail that would ordinarily give his family pause.
He doubted it would give them pause for long. They cared considerably more about their reputation than they cared about the age gap, and a marriage, any marriage, quieted certain conversations.
He closed the document and leaned back in his chair.
"Zhang Wei," he said.
His assistant looked up from his tablet. Zhang Wei was twenty eight, sharp, efficient, and possessed of an opinion on absolutely everything that he delivered with the confidence of someone who had never once been asked for it and intended to keep providing it anyway.
"Did I marry trouble?" Liuxian asked.
Zhang Wei set his tablet down with the air of someone who had been waiting for this question for approximately two hours ago.
"Xue Guiying, twenty three years old, illegitimate son of Xue Deyong," he began, in the tone of a man reading from a mental file he had already prepared.
"His childhood was not pleasant. Consistent abuse within the household, physical and emotional, from multiple family members over a sustained period. His cousin, Xue Peng, has a history of sexually assaulting him, which the family covered up on the basis that they are not blood related and therefore considered it a grey area."
He paused briefly. "Had he proceeded with the arranged marriage to Shen Zihao, the outcome would most likely have been fatal. Shen Zihao is clinically bipolar with severe and documented anger issues. There are no less than seven assault cases involving previous partners, all of which were settled quietly by his family before they could reach court."
Liuxian said nothing.
"So did you marry trouble?" Zhang Wei continued. "No, not necessarily. Rather you married an innocent man carrying a considerable amount of baggage." He picked his tablet back up.
"On that note, it would be best to keep the marriage quiet for now. I will pull the footage from the civil affairs bureau and have it secured, keeping one copy on file. The staff involved in processing and documenting the registration should be quietly replaced or reassigned. That way, until some of this baggage can be addressed, your name and reputation remain clean."
Liuxian looked at him.
"When did I say I was going to help him?" he said.
Zhang Wei looked back at him with the expression of a man who had worked for Liu Liuxian for four years and was not remotely intimidated.
"Shall I get to it then?" he said, already picking up his phone. He paused. "The rings you ordered arrived this morning by the way. They are lovely." Another pause, shorter this time. "Actually, boss, unrelated question. Do you have a brother I could marry? Or a cousin? Any Omega in the family, brother, sister, cousin, I am not particularly fussy."
Liuxian looked at him for a long moment.
"Get out," he said.
Zhang Wei was already halfway to the door, phone to his ear, looking entirely unbothered.