Contractual Cohabitation GL - Chapter 19
After entering the double-opening doors of the Jing residence, William, as always, rushed out to greet them.
Sure enough, keeping a pet is more healing! Jing Xiaonan spread her arms, her expression showing three parts surprise in her relief, and a flattered delight in her joy. She had already settled into a bow stance, ready to receive the impact of the furry cannonball, but saw the creature bypass her empty arms with lightning speed and throw itself into the arms of the beauty beside her. A relentless rub and three sweet, soft meows later, the petrified Jing Xiaonan on the side felt a rush of disgust and goosebumps.
Little traitor!
Jing Xiaonan glared at the shameless little thing, angry but unable to speak, viciously ranting in her mind that all cats were treacherous officials, bought off by a few pieces of Kyoto bone. Truly, “whoever feeds me is my mother,” the ancients did not deceive her! As this thought flashed through her mind, Jing Xiaonan subconsciously glanced at the two peaks where the dead cat William had deeply buried its head, and then looked down at her own chest. Well, although she did possess the necessary female characteristics, compared to the stunning figure next to her, well…
After her moment of childishness, Jing Xiaonan’s gaze involuntarily tracked the approximate location of that dead cat William’s head. Ye Luochen’s face seemed mostly normal, but her earlobes were noticeably red and hot. Meanwhile, when the cat pounced on Ye Luochen, a hint of complexity flashed in her eyes. This expression was most noticeable when the cat meowed softly, but it vanished moments later, unable to resist her innate fondness for small animals.
After playing with the soft and fluffy William for a while, her arms gradually felt tired, and she put the cat down. Ye Luochen was about to bend down to unpack the luggage Jing Xiaonan had carried home trip by trip, but Jing Xiaonan stopped her.
“It’s two o’clock. Shall we go register the cohabitation first? We can unpack these tonight when I get back, okay?”
In a gentle, consultative tone, Jing Xiaonan walked closer. There was seven parts seriousness and three parts undeniable anticipation in her clear eyes as she looked at Ye Luochen. Ye Luochen awkwardly looked away but nodded obediently.
A smile blossomed on Jing Xiaonan’s face. It started small and contained, controlled in a scholarly manner, but gradually, the corners of her mouth spread wider, becoming more and more childish. Although their decision to cohabit had been a foregone conclusion for a few days, it wasn’t until this moment, when she had moved all of Ye Luochen’s luggage over, that she truly and completely believed this fact. Regardless of what she told Gao Jiong, she could not deny the sudden yet powerful joy in her heart, which surprised even herself.
She took a large step forward, wrapped her arms around Ye Luochen’s slender waist, and lifted her, spinning her for more than half a circle in the air, eliciting a soft cry from the beauty before finally putting her down. But she didn’t increase the distance between them. Instead, she kept her embraced, lowering her head to rest her face against Ye Luochen’s delicate shoulder, her earlobes, which had just returned to fairness, flushing with bl00d again.
“I don’t know why, but I just feel so happy.” In a childish tone and phrasing, and with a barely perceptible nasal sound, Jing Xiaonan held her and whispered slowly into her ear: “I thought… I thought that someone would open the door for me when I come home, that there would be other human voices in the living room besides the TV, that you would be in my life from now on, and I just feel, I just feel… so happy.”
Jing Xiaonan tightened her arms, closing her eyes and immersing herself in this sudden, almost inexplicable joy. In the place she couldn’t see, Ye Luochen’s complex and conflicting feelings were fully revealed on her beautiful, exquisite face. The hands hanging by her sides moved slightly, as if to hug this person back, but ultimately, she didn’t.
Deciding to cohabit, was this right or wrong?
But Jing Xiaonan didn’t give her another chance to consider the question.
The Porsche sped back to the city center, observing the speed limit. Jing Xiaonan’s left hand was slightly possessively intertwined with Ye Luochen’s, and her right hand firmly held the folder containing all the necessary documents and materials. Jing Xiaonan strode into the unfamiliar registry office. Under the watchful eyes of the security guard at the entrance, she looked around, walked up two steps, selected the purpose of her visit on the welcome machine screen, and received a queue number.
She thought for a moment, making sure all preparations were in order. Jing Xiaonan led Ye Luochen to a quieter area in the waiting hall and sat down. As a lawyer herself, she had a professional understanding of the entire process. The only uncertainty was Ye Luochen’s attitude. But now that they had reached this stage, Jing Xiaonan considered the matter settled. She leaned back on the metal bench, quite relaxed, turning her face to smile charmingly at the person next to her.
She noticed that Ye Luochen’s long legs were held close together, her upper body was very straight, and her entire posture was elegant but seemed tense, with a hint of anxiety even in her expression.
Reaching out to cover her clasped hands resting on her crossed knees, the touch was cool. Jing Xiaonan straightened up a little to sit with her, and asked softly: “Nervous?”
Ye Luochen hesitated for a few seconds looking at Jing Xiaonan’s eyes, then still nodded.
Although she knew perfectly well this was a formality, and the relationship with Jing Xiaonan was merely a contract, for a woman who had never been in a relationship, let alone marriage, the formality felt unfamiliar yet longed for in her heart. Entering into this relationship with a woman with virtually no psychological preparation a month ago was something she couldn’t have imagined. In her eyes, marriage was not only extremely important but also sacred and solemn. With so many emotions intertwined, all Ye Luochen could show was this inexplicable nervousness.
Jing Xiaonan smiled, her charming peach blossom eyes curving to reveal her good mood at the moment. She wasn’t afraid of her nervousness, only of her feeling nothing at all. She reached out with her other hand, separated Ye Luochen’s hands, and warmed them in her own. Jing Xiaonan looked into her eyes and said softly but clearly:
“Don’t be afraid. After today, you will always have me. No matter how long you want me by your side, I promise that I will take good care of you and cherish you when you are with me. I may not be able to make you laugh every time, but I will at least not let you cry alone. I will spoil you like a younger sister, cherish you like a daughter, and confide in you like a soulmate. Luochen, don’t be nervous, okay?”
This was the first time Ye Luochen had looked directly into Jing Xiaonan’s eyes like this since the phone call. Her features were soft, her gaze tender, and a profound seriousness quietly flowed in the depths of her eyes. She hadn’t been looking not because she didn’t want to, but because she didn’t dare. She was afraid that looking too long would firmly imprint this scene on her heart, making it impossible to erase.
The two stared at each other in silence, one gentle and quiet, the other soft and steady. In this rare atmosphere, however, someone chose to interrupt the happiness of others.
“Are you two here to register too?! Two women?”
Jing Xiaonan frowned, turning towards the source of the voice, her expression losing its previous tenderness and slightly narrowing her eyes. Subconsciously, she shielded Ye Luochen behind her, facing the speaker with a calm expression.
This person had been sitting in front of them before they arrived. He was a middle-aged Chinese man whose accent did not sound like he was from mainland China. The man was looking at the two of them with blatant contempt, most of the disdain directed at Jing Xiaonan, his eyes full of hostility.
Jing Xiaonan met his gaze without flinching, showing no emotion. When she spoke, her tone was calm and light: “Who told you two women can’t register cohabitation?”
“Does that even need to be said?! This is common human nature. What you’re doing cannot be allowed!” The man’s tone was aggressive, his voice much louder than Jing Xiaonan’s.
Having had little contact with the LGBTQ+ community, and although she had heard of discrimination abroad, this was Ye Luochen’s first personal experience. Honestly, while she had no emotional repulsion and could easily accept this entanglement with Jing Xiaonan, the media influence she had experienced in China for over a decade meant she still held some reservations about it deep down. She didn’t speak, just looked at Jing Xiaonan’s beautiful profile, allowing her to control the situation.
“Ha!” Jing Xiaonan smiled faintly and shook her head. “When Caucasians discuss whether Asians should be treated equally, we say it’s unfair. But now, when heterosexuals decide whether homosexuals have the right to marry, some people think it’s perfectly normal. I truly can’t understand the logic in that.”
The middle-aged man was visibly startled, having not expected her to use such a line of argument. In his mind, homosexuals were all abnormal, but he hadn’t thought of the issue this way. However, he paused only briefly before saying with contempt: “Don’t tell me how normal you are. Haven’t you heard about that homosexual man’s case in Canada? You people are all sick.”
Hearing this last sentence, a hint of sharpness entered Jing Xiaonan’s otherwise rational eyes, but she didn’t get angry. She sighed and said: “Can one homosexual man being killed by his date prove that the entire group is abnormal? There are scumbags in every group in this world. If a few murders among homosexuals define them as abnormal, then may I ask how many murders, rapes, and other criminal acts occur among heterosexuals every year? Moreover, with your line of reasoning, could Caucasians investigate how many cases of illegal immigration, murder, or fraud occur among Chinese people, and use that as support for racial discrimination?”
Stunned by Jing Xiaonan’s rigorous reasoning, the middle-aged man gasped several times. He snorted and changed his argument: “Your kind of union, which cannot naturally produce the next generation, is abnormal. If everyone in the world were like you, there would be no more humans!”
“If you can’t naturally produce the next generation, you shouldn’t form a union? Then do men and women who are naturally infertile have no right to love?”
The man seemed to realize he couldn’t win on this point, so he interrupted her, stating harshly: “You people will be punished by the Lord!”
Oh… so he was a brainwashed Christian. Jing Xiaonan truly smiled then, her expression relaxed as she shook her head and leaned back against the chair. Her tone was dismissive: “If you support human reproduction, then the first thing you should oppose is China’s one-child policy. You’re right, if everyone in the world were like us, fertility would indeed be an issue. But if everyone in the world were Christian priests and nuns, there would also be no humans. You say the Lord will punish us? Well, the Bible also says premarital s3x is a sin and must be punished. Heh, I think given the current situation, the Lord will probably be too busy to handle it all.”
Ye Luochen looked up at her from the side, a hint of amusement in her eyes. Not only was Jing Xiaonan’s argument logical in every sentence, but her demeanor and composure while speaking were a thousand times superior to that Christian man’s. This Jing Xiaonan reminded her of the way she played the guitar and sang as if no one else were there that day; some people were simply meant to stand in the sun and be noticed. Although this person could sometimes be truly hateful and annoying, her integrity, her kindness and broad love for the street performer and the stray dog, made it impossible to truly hate her.
The Christian man stared at the two people in front of him. The girl in the white dress was pure and refined, her bright beautiful eyes fully reflecting the short-haired girl next to her. And the short-haired girl sat comfortably with her legs crossed, not looking at anyone, wearing a thoroughly smug expression that seemed to say, “What can you do to me?” He didn’t know why some people could still see her as having integrity. The man looked from one to the other, infuriated to find that the two did indeed look well-matched and pleasing to the eye.
“Hmph!” Years of brainwashing could certainly not be counteracted by one or two sentences. The man got up and walked away, angrily throwing out a final sentence: “No matter how skilled you are at sophistry, this secular world will not tolerate you!”
The argument between the two had drawn glances from people of various ancestries due to the man’s loud voice. Now that the man shouted this sentence in English, the people around looked at Jing and Ye, and, associating it with the location, they understood.
Jing Xiaonan accepted the stares of the crowd very openly. She also switched to English, smiling as she answered loudly: “A hundred years ago, Chinese and dogs were not allowed entry. Two hundred years ago, black people in America were only allowed to be slaves. Three hundred years ago, it was normal for a man to have three wives and four concubines. Four hundred years ago, a romantic relationship between a teacher and a student was considered a scandal. Homosexual love may not be accepted by the majority now, but more and more countries have already legalized it. What will happen in a hundred years? Can you foresee it?”