Chapter 391: Do You Have To Be So Secretive For A Proposal?

"Wait a moment." Ruan Danchen took Qi Chenglin's member card from the shop employee and stuffed it back at Qi Chenglin, then passed her own member card to the shop employee instead.

Qi Chenglin frowned slightly, but Ruan Danchen responded with a smile: "Give me a chance to get you a gift too."

Ruan Danchen's thoughts were simple. Qi Chenglin had always purchased various things for her. She did not want to be the one that was always on the receiving end. She had always thought of getting something as a gift to Qi Chenglin, not as repayment, but purely to show her love by sending her gifts. Unfortunately, she had no idea on what to gift.

Now that there's such a chance, she wanted to pay it out of her own pocket.

Her income was incomparable to Qi Chenglin as her basic salary added with commissions were approximately around twenty thousand a month. She had only joined Qilin recently, and barely closed the deal on the property in the northern district of the city but have yet to collect the commission, so she only had her basic salary. However, these two scarves were still within her budget.

Additionally, spending time together with Qi Chenglin, he had never let her spend any money, leaving her salary almost untouched.

Qi Chenglin pondered for a moment and his hands were being lightly shaken by Ruan Danchen. "I really want to get you something."

Qi Chenglin gave it a thought and put on the scarf gifted by Ruan Danchen. It turned out to be a rather happy thing that he felt warmed up in an instant so he nodded in agreement, but added: "Yours is a gift from me, and mine will be a gift from you."

Runa Danchen nodded gladly. Qi Chenglin then proceeded to have the shop employee split the bill.

The employee was exhausted by these two and wanted nothing more than to send them off, resulting in a surprisingly quick process.

Later, both of them put on the scarf gifted by each other and walked away happily hand-in-hand.

When Ruan Danchen thought about the earlier incident, she felt that they were both rather shameless, and so decided they would try to avoid this shop in the future. If they were to come again, it would have to be when this particular employee was not there.

...

...

After exiting the shop, Qi Chenglin's sent Ruan Danchen back to Prestige Residences. However, he had Ruan Danchen wait in the car while he went upstairs to fetch Qi Youxuan, claiming that they were eating out that night.

Ruan Danchen wanted to ask why they were going out for dinner for no apparent reason as he had always preferred to eat at home. He did not like to eat out unless there were no other options.

However, Qi Chenglin had already walked into the unit before she could raise her question.

After a while, Qi Youxuan could be seen following Qi Chenglin out of the building excitedly.

Little Qi Youxuan had been losing weight recently, but his body shape was still slightly round. With the extra layers he had on him due to the cold weather, he looked like a little penguin as he jumped around behind Qi Chenglin.

He nimbly got into the backseat and got into the child safety seat and fastened the seatbelt. Surprisingly he did not request for Ruan Danchen to sit with him in the backseat.

It was obvious that Qi Chenglin was very satisfied by Qi Youxuan's performance when he got into the car.

"Where are we going?" Ruan Danchen turned around and asked.

"To the Red Roof Club." Qi Chenglin answered.

Ruan Danchen did not question further, and treated it as an appointment to meet with Yan Beicheng and co.

She had a meetup at Shengyue during noon time. It could be during that time that he made the appointment with Yan Beicheng and co.

When they got to the Red Roof Club and parked the car, Ruan Danchen found it weird. "Why are there so few cars today? The Red Roof Club don't have many customers!"

Furthermore she knows all the cars that are parked here.

When she was here on the first day of the new year, there were very few cars as well, but that was understandable since it was the first day of the new year. Even so, that was still way more than this day.

"Yan Beicheng mentioned that everytime we had a gathering, there were too many random strangers being in the way, making him unable to standout as the boss compared to the normal customers. If he can't have that elitist feel, there was no point being a boss. In the end he decided as long as we're here for a gathering, they will not serve outsiders." Qi Chenglin explained.

Ruan Danchen pouted. "It's different being the boss huh."

Qi Chenglin nodded seriously. "The rich tends to be capricious."

"Achoo!" Yan Beicheng was in the middle of giving orders to his employees when he suddenly exploded with an extra loud sneeze, sniffled, and then continued on.

Ruan Danchen stopped asking and followed Qi Chenglin inside. Instead of the path to the usual room they used, Qi Chenglin led her to the second floor.

Red Roof Club's courtyard originally belonged to the brother of an emperor in the Qing dynasty. When Yan Beicheng initially purchased this place, he did not change any of the design and left it to its original layout.

The central room on the second floor was larger. Even though it could not compare to the banquet room of Dynasty, it was still capable of accomodating 40-50 people as it was previously used for shows.

Rumor has it that when it was too cold outside during winter for viewing, those dignitaries would stay here and watch the show from above, looking directly at the stage below, equivalent to a VIP theatre box.

At the door, Qi Youxuan spoke out all of a sudden. "Daddy, Mommy, I need to go pee."

Upon hearing that, Ruan Danchen wanted to bring him over immediately, but was firmly rejected by Qi Youxuan. "The toilet is just by the side. I can go by myself."

Ruan Danchen looked towards the direction that Qi Youxuan pointed at, noticed that it was just diagonally across not far away. At that moment, the waiter leading them at the front proactively went and led Qi Youxuan to the washroom. Ruan Danchen kept an eye on Qi Youxuan as he entered while the waiter waited outside. Only then she could relax.

After Qi Chenglin led Ruan Danchen into the room, Qi Youxuan quietly snuck out, apparently not showing any urge to pee at all.

The room was dark and the lights were not lit. Ruan Danchen was confused as she entered, with her hands held tightly by Qi Chenglin. The window was right across the room from her.

The window was fully open, but she did not feel cold since she had her scarf wrapped around her.

Qi Chenglin dragged Ruan Danchen up to the window. Right after that, Ruan Danchen saw the opposite window lit up all of a sudden. It was not because the lights in the opposite room was lit as the rooms were still all dark.

It was the light projected on the dark window opposite the. Those were her photos, photos that were taken when she was resting on his office sofa. On the next window was a photo of her cooking in the kitchen of the house in Prestige Residences. Beside that, was another photo of her playing with Youxuan, with both of them laughing especially happily.

Slowly, photos were scattered everywhere. All the windows across them were lit up with projected photos, all from the moments in her life, recorded by photographs.

In every single photo, she was not looking at the camera lens. She had no idea when did Qi Chenglin took these photos. She was sure that these photos were all taken by Qi Chenglin.

Even though she did not look at the lens, her photos were still taken beautifully with a natural look. Ruan Danchen had always failed to imagine how it felt to see the love of the photographer from a photo, or how to tell if the love was there.

However, she could really tell by looking at these photos. Every single photo was filled with emotions, touching one's heart. It was as if their entire journey from when they met, got to know each other, then eventually got together was put on replay, giving a nostalgic feeling.

The originally dark night without a sign of light was now covered in a warm color by these photos.

Looking at the photos, feeling warm, yet strangely her eyes felt sore.

The windows across them were all filled with photos, leaving only the middle window in their direction still dark.

Finally, the dark patch that was the middle window was also projected with a photo, but it was no longer photos of Ruan Danchen alone. It was a photo of her, Qi Chenglin, and Qi Youxuan's group photo. All three of them smiling warmly, emanating an aura of happiness. Anyone would agree that they are a family of three.

In a short moment, everything opposite of them were lit up. The lights from the photo shined through and the reflected light on this building gave off a faint halo.

Qi Chenglin cleared his throat with a slight awkwardness. When the moonlight from outside and the projector lights from across shined through, Ruan Danchen could faintly see Qi Chenglin's face was blushing slightly.

"All these time we were together, I've always recorded them unknowingly. In the future, I still want to continue recording more of these plain but wonderful life full of warmth. Youxuan and I had you in our lives, and we want to continue having you in it. I want your children to be given my family name."

"Ever since knowing you, my life felt like these photos. Filled with warmth, exceptionally warm. You said you have wanted to have a family from a young age. I hope that from now on, we three will all have a family." Qi Chenglin felt his hand sweat, nervously took a deep breath, then continued. "Danchen, are you willing to give me a chance, to let me take more photos of you, have more group photos with Youxuan and I, continue to record the next 50, 60 years? Are you willing, for me to provide you with a family?"

Ruan Danchen already knew what he wanted to do, but she did not expect him to make such a big scene out of it.

She noticed an intricate box that had somehow appeared in Qi Chenglin's hands. She was focused on Qi Chenglin's face earlier and never noticed anything.

Now that she lowered her head, she could see Qi Chenglin nervously grasping around.

"In the past 20 years, all the things you didn't have, all the things you envied, I will give them to you. I have always thought that in this life, I will be spending it with Youxuan, as father and son before I met you. I have given up on remarrying." Qi Chenglin smiled nervously. Ruan Danchen saw that his lips was trembling. If not for her witnessing this, she could not imagine him looking like this.

"Thank you for your appearance, that gave us father and son a new family. Perhaps I should be asking instead, Danchen, are you willing to give us a family? Will you marry me?" Qi Chenglin opened the ring box and swallowed nervously.

"The past few times I mentioned this, I was not joking. Every time I asked you, I had wished that you would say yes. The reason I asked that way was because I did not know how to propose." Qi Chenglin smiled stiffly. "I was hoping that if you had agreed to it, then I wouldn't need to be this nervous."

Seeing his stiff looks, he was nothing like the cool, calm, and proud man he used to be. Ruan Danchen's eyes were tearing up, yet she was laughing. She could not care about the ring in his hands and directly jumped into his embrace.

Both her arms tightly wrapped around Qi Chenglin's neck, almost strangling him.

He quickly closed the box to prevent losing the ring, then held her in his arms while letting her wrap around his neck without voicing out.

"You didn't have to waste so much effort. All you had to do was ask me directly if I was willing to marry you will do." Ruan Danchen suddenly felt that this guy also had his stupid moments.

"I put in the effort because I treasure you." Qi Chenglin said. "So with this, I take it that you agree to marry me, right?"

Ruan Danchen nodded rigorously, with her forehead stuck to his sternum, rubbing his neck.

Qi Chenglin lowered his head, just to see her raising her head. "Mm, I was waiting for you to ask me seriously. Apart from you, I'm not marrying anyone else. If I can't marry you, I'll just be single for life. If you ditched me, I'll be a woman that nobody wants for my whole life."

Qi Chenglin smiled. The conversation was originally on her agreeing to the marriage, but somehow she managed to derail the topic to talk about breaking up, and with such tragic ending.

While she spoke, all her breath were on his neck, making him feel hot and itchy. All these hooking onto him had hooked up the fire in him.

Holding onto her, he couldn't resist but to push her waist tight and then shove his lower part close to her, branding her with his burning hot tool.

As expected, Ruan Danchen quivered. She weakly pinched at the back of his neck. "Put the ring on my finger."

"So impatient?" Qi Chenglin could not help but joked at her.

Ruan Danchen coquettishly squirmed around in his embrace. "If you don't put it on, then forget it."

"Yes yes, I'll put it on." Qi Chenglin quickly replied. "Stop squirming. If you continue to squirm I can't hold back anymore."

Ruan Danchen could hear his voice slowly turning hoarse and stopped moving. His head lowered, intentionally brushing his lips against her ears as he spoke.

Looking down through the dim hazy illumination, he could see her flushed ears. Under the hazy lighting, her short, white fine hair were clearly visible, seemingly covering her ears a layer of halo.

With a sudden thought, Qi Chenglin's warm lips kissed her on the base of her ears and suckled on it lightly. Seeing how much Ruan Danchen was quivering uncontrollably, with her face flushed and speechless, Qi Chenglin had some difficulty holding back his urges.

Moving forward from the base of her ears, kissing her up to her cheeks, his downcast eyes could see that her eyes were half shut. Her eyes were misty and hazy, as though it were a mist of alcohol, getting him drunk in it.

Qi Chenglin's breathing got heavier, both lips moving towards her eyes. He especially loved her eyes, those beautiful and seductive orbs.

"Bang!"

The door was pushed open so suddenly, even Qi Chenglin was shocked. Not letting go of Ruan Danchen, still holding her in his arms, he turned around to see...nobody.

"Daddy, are you done proposing?" A voice came from below.

Due to the darkness, they just realized that it was this little fella that came in.

Followed by a clicking sound, the room was filled with bright lights and the projectors were turned off.

They could see Grandfather and Grandmother Qi leading the Qi family members inside, following behind them were Yan Beicheng and the rest.

"Grandpa, Grandma, you're all here..." Ruan Danchen said stiffly, feeling extremely awkward, unsure how much they have overheard.

She gave Qi Chenglin a stare, meaning to ask 'why did you bring along so many people over for a proposal?'

Qi Chenglin looked back at her innocently, signalling to her that these people were not here by his invitation.

"I only told Yan Beicheng that I needed to borrow a place and had him help out." Qi Chenglin said lowering his head while shooting a stare at Yan Beicheng.

Yan Beicheng scratched the side of his nose and said smiling: "Isn't it merrier with more people? I only brought it up with Zhuo'zi and the gang. Who knew he would let his grandmother find out."

Han Zhuoli rolled his eyes. "When you called me to talk, I was at the old mansion with my grandma was sitting right next to me. How could she not find out?"

"Hehehehe, the moment Xiao Han heard that it was a secret and you did not tell us, she immediately came to me to show off. She was bragging that she found out about my grandson's stuff earlier than I did." Grandmother Qi looked at Qi Chenglin with slight disatisfaction.

"Do you have to be so secretive for a proposal?" Grandfather Qi stared at him, also showing dissatisfaction.

"..." Qi Chenglin wanted it to be done quietly with just the two of them, without such a big crowd watching them.

"Aiyo, isn't this to save time for you both?" Grandmother Qi said. "Save you both the trouble of taking an extra trip to the old mansion just to deliver the news."

At that moment, the lights were turned on. Ruan Danchen just realized that in this big room, there was a small square table with three seats. It should be for Qi Chenglin, Qi Youxuan and her.

Now that there were so many people, they all moved back downstairs to Yan Beicheng's room.

Everyone took their seat and waited for the food. Grandmother Qi took out a chinese calendar.

Just as she wanted to discuss the dates with Guan Liya, she suddenly started thinking as she looked at the people around the table. Grandmother Qi did not treat Yan Beicheng and the gang as outsiders. These kids were so close to her own grandson, Grandmother Qi treated them as if her own grandchildren.

On top of that, back when Song Yu was kidnapped by Jian Yi and her family was busy with gathering funds, these kids, without a word of complaint, brought along cash as they came by, one by one showing their loyalty. Even though normally they may seem to blabber around unthinkingly, this time, about Qi Chenglin's proposal, it was actually Yan Beicheng that exposed it on purpose. Grandmother Qi knew deep in her heart, even Qi Chenglin knew deep in his heart.

However, this kid knows his limits. He knows what to expose, and what to keep secret. Those that are not meant to be said will not be mentioned.

Moreover, from Grandmother Qi's perspective, even though Liu Ronghua will not let this slide, her being the stepmother to Ruan Danchen was not quite the secret either, impossible to be hidden forever. Might as well just be truthful about it, since Ruan Danchen and Liu Ronghua has no actual relations.

Based on the likes of Liu Ronghua, the adoption of Ruan Danchen most likely had other darker secrets behind it.

Hence, Grandmother Qi did not bother to beat around the bush and asked directly: "Danchen, do you need to talk with Madam Liu about the wedding?"

Ruan Danchen shook her head. "No need, Grandmother. You can make the decision along with Auntie. I was not planning to invite her and the Shen family anyway."

Ruan Danchen felt that Liu Ronghua was someone who does not know how to carry herself and could make a scene regardless of the situation. If by then she decided to make a scene and embarass everyone, that would be no small matter.

Since Liu Ronghua had put it that way on that day, she had no need to fight with her and drag the Qi family into this.

It would seem that Grandmother Qi was very satisfied with this decision and excitedly nodded.

"What's with the Auntie when you're already getting married." Qi Chenglin threw a glance at her.

"..." Ruan Danchen was too shy to say anything.

Guan Liya had thought it through. Even if Ruan Danchen's background was a little complicated, was it something that the Qi family could not cover for?

At Qi family's current status, there was no need for allied marriage anymore, so as to the daughter-in-law, that was up to themselves.

Chengze's wife was of a decent background, but in the end did not prove to be of much help was it not? In fact, she failed to properly take care of him.

Grandmother Qi specifically called her over to the old mansion and had a long discussion with her. She understood the reasoning to take a capable wife with good character. It was more important than family background.

Who does not want someone with good character and family background, but such perfect circumstances was not something that will appear just because you want it. If one were to be found, Grandmother Qi thought that too much of a good thing and trouble will follow suit. Things are better with the imperfections.

Although it was rather superstitious, it managed to convince Guan Liya. Most importantly, Ruan Danchen was Qi Youxuan's biological mother. Just that alone left nothing much to be argued about.

_

Extra mini-scene:

(NOZUONODIE①)

Recently a large scale gaming company had released a pure wuxia genre game. During initial launch, access was limited.. Qi Chengrui had a female classmate that was by chance the daughter of the company's CEO, a few accounts were given to Qi Chengrui.

Qi Chengrui enjoyed the game and passed on the remaining accounts to Ruan Danchen, Song Yu, and Wei Ran. Turned out the three of them also found it interesting and were addicted for a time.

At night, with Qi Chenglin in the bedroom, Ruan Danchen was no longer hurrying into bed, instead stayed in front of the computer hunting for equipment with the other three. The four of them were ambitious and made the decision to create a guild together when their levels were sufficient.

Unfortunately their skills were poor and paired with bad luck. They had difficulty killing monsters, barely able to kill them. Not meeting the standard, high level equipments were rarely found.