Dragon Raja: I practiced Naruto ninjutsu next to Lu Mingfei.

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In first class, Gu Ran yawned listlessly. He really had no interest in this task of taking care of children.

However, Zhou Yancheng persisted in begging him to take good care of his sister, and Nuwa also intervened and said a few words, so Gu Ran finally accepted the task.

Zhou Yancheng paid for the plane ticket. As soon as the plane took off, a flight attendant came to Gu Ran's side and began to introduce the meal.

Gu Ran didn't have much of an appetite for airplane food. Even in the most luxurious first class, the food was still pre-made and served to everyone equally, so he just ordered a little something.

After finishing his meal, Gu Ran closed his eyes to rest and began to meditate.

Zhou Xinqing was wearing a pair of Sony headphones and listening to music.

The plane flew for about four hours and landed at an airport in the northwest. Then they had to take a car for about eight hours and then walk for several hours along mountain roads to reach Ma Qianyan's village.

After arriving at the airport, Zhou Yancheng arranged for an SUV to be provided to Gu Ran so that they could drive there themselves.

This was also what Gu Ran requested; it's always more convenient to drive yourself.

Zhou Xinqing was very well-behaved throughout the journey, not saying a word, just like an obedient child. She did whatever Gu Ran asked her to do.

The purpose of this trip was simple: to see Ma Qianyan get married.

Ma Qianyan turned 20 a few days ago, which is the age when she can get a marriage certificate.

Previously, Zhou Xinqing had planned to take revenge on Ma Qianyan according to Gu Ran's plan.

Zhou Yancheng helped out by finding a man named Agui to devise a plan to bring Ma Qianyan from Shanghai back to the rural area in Northwest China.

After a day and a night of travel, Gu Ran and Zhou Xinqing finally arrived at this village hidden deep in the Loess Plateau and old forests.

The two then arrived at the groom's house, intending to attend the wedding banquet as the groom's friends.

"Gentlemen, my place is small... I only have one guest room and one bed..." Ah Zhao, who was about to become a groom, rubbed his hands together, feeling a little lost.

Gu Ran found a stool and sat down, saying to A Gui, "Alright, we can arrange it ourselves. You... should start preparing for tomorrow's wedding."

"Okay, okay." Zhao tactfully withdrew, leaving the room to Gu Ran and Zhou Xinqing.

This lazy rural man in his forties was specifically sought out. He was truly lazy; he only owned two acres of land, which he had never cultivated. He lived in a mud house from the 1960s, and the roof tiles leaked, with no one to repair them.

When he heard that someone was offering him money to get married, Zhao was overjoyed. He never imagined that he could get married, especially a young and educated woman like Ma Qianyan.

Ma Qianyan's appearance is average, but her features are fairly regular. Her figure is average, but she is still slim. She would be considered a pretty girl in the village.

Zhao had often secretly glanced at Ma Qianyan when she was in school, and had even fantasized about her a few times. Now that his dream had actually come true and he was able to marry her, he didn't know what kind of good fortune he had accumulated over several lifetimes.

Although Ah Zhao is lazy, he is very perceptive and knows that he was able to get married today thanks to the help of these two benefactors.

He didn't know the identities of these two important people, but he knew that he shouldn't ask questions he shouldn't ask. He had heard this from a storyteller on the radio: those talkative villains always died the first.

"This house... is really dilapidated." Gu Ran looked at the house, which still had mud walls, and dust could be swept up with a simple sweep.

Zhou Xinqing sat on the kang (a heated brick bed), touched it, and found that the kang was still cold. She thought to herself, "This lazy man doesn't even heat the kang for his guests."

Gu Ran stood up and said, "I'll go light it. Although I've never lit a kang before, we need to light it to sleep tonight. Otherwise, even with dragon blood, we won't be able to withstand the sub-zero temperatures in this remote mountainous region of Northwest China."

He asked A Zhao for firewood, and A Zhao told Gu Ran the location of the woodshed from inside the room, but he didn't get out of bed or continue to greet him.

Zhou Xinqing followed them out at this moment, and Gu Ran laughed, "You guys really went to great lengths to find this lazybones."

“It was my brother who found it,” Zhou Xinqing said quietly. Her voice was clear and melodious, a natural-born songstress.

Zhou Yancheng was very concerned about avenging his sister, so he hired a private investigator to investigate the information of everyone in the village and finally chose this husband for Ma Qianyan.

In the woodshed, Zhou Xinqing casually picked up a wood-chopping knife, while Gu Ran held a large bundle of logs. Zhou Xinqing gripped the knife and quickly cut the logs into four pieces.

Because it was a kang (heated brick bed) in an earthen house, which hadn't been used for a long time. It was said to have been passed down from the time of Zhao's grandfather. It was made of yellow clay and had no bricks or steel bars.

Gu Ran was afraid that if the fire burned too fiercely at once, the large temperature difference would cause the earthen bed to collapse, so he didn't dare to make the fire too big at once. Instead, he distributed firewood evenly around the fire and let it burn slowly.

This kind of earthen bed heats up slowly, so Gu Ran kept it burning slowly, wondering what he had come all this way for.

He glanced at Zhou Xinqing beside him, thinking that he should have known better than to teach her to design such a complicated revenge plan. He should have just found a place and killed her with one blow.

Zhou Xinqing watched Gu Ran work from the side and suddenly said, "Actually, I didn't want to come, but my brother insisted that I go and see how painful it was for her when she got married, saying that it would be very satisfying, so I came. I didn't expect to cause trouble for you."

"I won't implicate you," Gu Ran said, poking at the charcoal fire. "But do you really think it's fun?"

"I don't know," Zhou Xinqing said, "but I don't want her to have an easy time."

“Good, that’s progress. Before, you wanted her dead, now you don’t want her to have a good life, so you understand that living in pain is the most torturous thing.”

“I learned it all from you,” Zhou Xinqing suddenly said with a smile.

"Don't label me like that, I'm a kind person." Gu Ran laughed.

Soon, the kang (a heated brick bed) was heated, and Gu Ran and Zhou Xinqing lay down on it together, each sleeping on one side, fully clothed.

Because in Ah Zhao's house, there wasn't even a decent quilt...

……

The next morning, Ma Qianyan sat blankly in her small room at home with red eyes, letting her mother dress her up in her wedding gown.

The so-called wedding dress was nothing more than a red garment without gold thread, and even the red cloth was faded.

Her parents certainly wouldn't spend money to prepare a wedding dress for her, and even though A-Zhao paid the betrothal gifts, he had no intention of buying her a wedding dress.

Ma Qianyan had seen wedding dresses and traditional Chinese wedding attire on television before, and she had imagined what she would look like in a wedding dress, but she never expected that reality would be so cruel.

Ever since she was brought back to the mountain village from Shanghai, she knew that the door to the outside world had been closed to her.

A few days ago, she and Ah Zhao got their marriage certificate, so they are already considered husband and wife.

Looking back on all of this, she suddenly felt very regretful. If only Zhou Xinqing hadn't been trafficked to northern Myanmar, if she were still alive, she could have just asked her for help and she would have found a way to save her.

Unfortunately, there's no going back in this world.

Ma Qianyan has always been obedient to her parents, so she no longer has the courage to rebel. She dares not go on a hunger strike, dares not hang herself, dares not threaten suicide, and only dares to cry softly.

But after her father scolded her a few times, saying that her crying was bad luck, she stopped crying.

Zhou Xinqing was worried that Ma Qianyan might run away, but she didn't expect that Ma Qianyan didn't have the courage to run away at all.

After washing up, Ma Qianyan's mother applied some rosy blush to her face with red paper and then had her purse her lips with red paper, making them slightly rosy. That was considered the end of her makeup.

"I heard that Zhao hired a chef from the big city to cook, and he's inviting the whole village over for dinner. Every table will have seafood and prawns. It's going to be very grand. We've never had anything like this in our village. Zhao is so generous with his money. If you marry him, you'll definitely have a good life."

Chapter 367 A Grand Wedding

Hearing her mother's words, Ma Qianyan sighed inwardly. Although this Ah Zhao was a bit old, he was still quite wealthy. Perhaps with a little persuasion in his ear, he could eventually settle down in the city...

Yes, first we need to try to leave this village, then go to the county, and finally to Shanghai...

She longed for the vibrancy of big cities.

Thinking of this, Ma Qianyan's hope was rekindled!

What she didn't know was that the Zhou family had also paid for the meal; Zhao had no money to treat anyone!

According to Gu Ran's plan, the original intention was to only give money to A Zhao to get married. As for building a house, that was impossible. How could people live a hard life if they built a house?

The village quickly became lively. The largest open space in the village was a wheat drying ground, which was big enough to set up more than 30 tables. In fact, it didn't need that many, because the whole village only had about a hundred people, and setting up 15 tables would have been more than enough.

Although it's only morning, the culinary team Zhou Yancheng hired has already started working. The wedding banquet menu is also very elaborate, combining Cantonese dishes such as chicken, duck, fish, shrimp, and abalone, as well as local beef and mutton, plus a Cantonese roast meat platter made with pork, making a total of twelve main dishes, all of which are hearty dishes. The only staple food is fried mantou with condensed milk and noodles with minced meat sauce, which would be considered quite luxurious in the local area.

The aroma alone, emanating from the food preparation process, has attracted a group of villagers to gather around.

The mother took Ma Qianyan's hand and gestured for her to look towards the wheat drying ground:

"Look, those are all the chefs that Zhao hired. They look so impressive. The whole village is watching. Zhao is so willing to spend money, so he probably won't treat you badly. And I heard that he also bought a lot of home appliances. It's just that the house is a bit old, but that doesn't matter. I guess he's planning to build a proper house after he gets married. He has money to get a wife, so surely he has money to build a house!"

"Mother, I understand. I won't run away. I'll marry well."

"Hey, good girl, that's right. It's good that you can think about it, it's good that you can think about it."

Now that things have come to this, Ma Qianyan has resigned herself to her fate. Her father has taken the money, and she has been taken back to the village. She has no room to resist.

She dared not die, so she could only accept her fate; that's how people are in this world.

Soon, the auspicious time of noon arrived, and more and more people from the village gathered at the wheat-drying ground.

The table was covered with cold dishes and snacks rarely seen in the mountain village. The children loved potato chips and rice crackers, as well as spicy strips and other appetizing snacks. There were so many that the villagers were amazed by the variety.

Seeing the villagers' happy faces, Ma Qianyan's parents were also beaming with joy, thinking that their son-in-law had brought them honor.

So they treated the villagers even more warmly, and the villagers complimented them even more lavishly.

As for Ah Zhao, the protagonist, he remained at home, entertaining the two distinguished guests.

"Are you two really not coming out to eat with us later?" Ah Zhao asked.

"No need, we'll just set up a small table here," Gu Ran said with a smile. "Now is not the time to meet the bride, because she seems quite happy right now. We'll appear after you've consummated your marriage tomorrow, which will be a better surprise for her."

"Okay, I'll go out and greet the guests," Zhao said cautiously.

"Okay, congratulations on your marriage," Gu Ran said.

"Thank you, thank you, I appreciate your kind words." Ah Zhao was dressed in a very proper men's wedding suit, with a big red flower hanging on his chest, and he looked very energetic.

Zhou Xinqing remained expressionless; she could see the scene outside even from inside the house.

She saw Ma Qianyan outside. Ma Qianyan looked resigned to her fate, and even had a slight smile on her face, indicating that she was quite satisfied with the wedding.

But will she be satisfied with her life?

What will she think when she discovers tomorrow that this is just Truman's world?

"Miss, Mr. Gu, what do you plan to have for lunch?" A man in his forties walked in and asked Gu Ran and Zhou Xinqing.

If Ma Qianyan's parents saw him, they would recognize him as Agui.

A-Gui's real name is Zhou Gui. He is the housekeeper in Zhou Yancheng's household and has known Zhou Xinqing for a long time. You could say he watched her grow up.

"Whatever," Zhou Xinqing said.

Gu Ran thought for a moment and then said, "Let's set up a table here just like the wedding banquets outside."

"Yes, I'll arrange for the chef to prepare it right away." Zhou Gui was very respectful to Gu Ran and asked in a low voice, "Would Young Master Gu like some wine?"

"I don't like drinking, give me a bottle of Coke."

Zhou Gui immediately went out to make arrangements, and at that moment, gongs and drums were being played outside. The newlyweds began to toast their parents and respected elders in the village, asking them to be their witnesses.

In rural areas, the bigger the wedding celebration and the more luxurious the banquet, the more prestigious it is.

So the banquet lasted from noon until evening. Whenever anyone wanted to eat, they could sit down and have a meal. There was everything from lobster and abalone to chicken, duck, and fish. There was also an endless supply of beef and lamb. Everyone could eat as much as they wanted and take leftovers home.