Chapter 16: Your Tormenting Marriage Law

After hanging up the phone, Gu Cheng felt an inexplicable and indescribable mood.

He had never expected that the casual lie he once used to fob off Liu Feifei would be dug up by her through such persistent questioning. It seemed that young, naive girls who had been pampered and spoiled since childhood were truly best left alone. Once such a girl felt slighted and her "princess syndrome" flared up, the consequences were quite serious.

Of course, he didn't hate Liu Feifei for this. He knew she was simply unwilling to give up and wanted to see if there was any possibility of挽回 (reconciliation). It only proved she was still too immature and completely failed to understand the mind of a man—there isn't a man in this world who could be won back by having his lies exposed. If a man would rather lie than be with someone, it simply meant he had no feelings for them whatsoever, neither mentally nor physically.

...

When Kwon Bo-ah’s call came through, Gu Cheng had just left work early to accompany his cousin to the hospital to visit Cherry, who was about to be discharged that day. Caught off guard by the ringing phone, he had no choice but to duck into the restroom of the private ward to answer it.

He stayed in the restroom for a full fifteen minutes, which naturally made Pan Jieying suspicious. The two cousins were used to talking about everything, so she questioned him about the situation immediately.

Gu Cheng had wanted to wait until they got home to avoid Cherry, but he couldn't bring himself to hide it. After all, Cherry had been injured for the sake of the company and seemed very loyal; she wouldn't leak his private affairs. Gritting his teeth, Gu Cheng told Pan Jieying the whole story right then and there.

Pan Jieying was shocked, followed by a faint sense of regret. She had once tried to play matchmaker between Gu Cheng and Kwon Bo-ah, but as Gu Cheng’s status and talent grew, her own ambitions for him had shifted; she wanted to find a sister-in-law whose conditions were more fitting for her cousin. However, she still prioritized Gu Cheng’s own happiness above all else.

Seeing the situation clearly as an outsider, she soon assumed her role as the older sister and offered him some gentle guidance:

"You child, back when I wanted to set you two up, you acted like you didn't have any feelings for her. Now that you’ve become like brother and sister, you’re suddenly feeling lost and regretful—I really don’t understand you. Ah Cheng, although you should focus on your career, you need to think about your future. Don't be so reckless. Money is something you can never earn enough of; the difference in happiness between one billion and ten billion is negligible."

Gu Cheng lay back on the sofa across from the hospital bed, sighed deeply, and explained with a bit of awkwardness, "I could only say I had a bit of a crush on Xiao Ya. After all, I’m a sentimental person; she’s always been good to me, we’ve shared hardships, and our personalities and values align. To me, those are the most important things in a girl. As for whether she’s the most beautiful, I actually don't care that much...

"It's just, you know me. Perhaps I’m too arrogant—I’ve always felt that if I pursued a girl before her mind was fully mature, even if I succeeded, it would be an unfair victory. At such a young age, they can’t even sign a contract that holds legal weight; how would they know what they truly love? Chasing a young girl like that, even if I succeeded, would feel no different than tricking her in my heart. It’s meaningless."

He meant this sincerely, not out of affectation. Having grown tired of stunning beauties in his past life, he had never experienced a true soul connection. It was like someone who had eaten meatballs for three days straight—if you served them more, it would be nauseating, and switching to curry fish balls might be much better. But for someone who had been eating curry fish balls for three days, the situation would be reversed. People always treasure what they lack the most, and the happiness gained from obtaining it is the greatest. This has nothing to do with the objective commercial value of the object itself.

Therefore, when Gu Cheng said, "It’s not important whether the wife I find is beautiful or not; I can get whoever I want regardless of how beautiful she is," his mentality was exactly the same as Wang Xicong from another dimension saying, "I don't care if my friends are rich or not; they’re not as rich as me anyway." Of course, the Wang Xicong of this timeline would certainly have no right to say that, because Gu Cheng existed.

As for Gu Cheng's analysis of his own pride, it was quite sharp: What kind of man was he? Was there any top-tier beauty he couldn't make fall in love with him if he wanted to? Since that was the case, why bother tricking a young girl whose mind wasn't yet mature? That was no different from driving a Tiger tank in World of Tanks to slaughter T-34s among the beginners. Even if you won, there was no sense of achievement at all.

What he wanted was for a girl to fall in love with him after her mind was mature, knowing exactly what she wanted in life. That was why, over the past year or so, even though he thought Kwon Bo-ah was great and they were a good match, he had only protected and guided her like a big brother.

Pan Jieying sat beside her cousin with her legs tucked in a ladylike manner, quietly ruminating on these words for a long time until she finally grasped Gu Cheng’s intentions. Since her cousin liked her, she naturally wanted to find a way. After a brief moment of thought, she immediately spotted a loophole: "Hey, wait. The Marriage Law’s ban on consanguineous marriage only extends to 'collateral relatives within three generations,' right? Hmm, that means... people like you and me are, legally speaking, actually... that is..."

When Pan Jieying first thought of this, she was purely happy for Gu Cheng and Kwon Bo-ah and didn't think much of it. But as she spoke, she realized how awkward it was; her voice grew lower and more hesitant, and her face flushed bright red down to her neck.

"What are you thinking about! How shameful!" Pan Jieying fiercely rebuked the involuntary, dirty thoughts in her mind, forcefully suppressing the surge of blood. She adjusted her ladylike posture, switching her legs from right over left to left over right.

All of this happened within three seconds, and Gu Cheng, who was lying there staring at the ceiling, naturally didn't notice.

Having adjusted her mood and posture, Pan Jieying quickly finished the second half of her sentence with lightning speed: "Anyway, you and Xiao Ya are already fourth-degree collateral relatives, right? If you really like her, just go for it."

"It’s not quite that simple. The laws in Dongyi are a bit different from ours." Gu Cheng nervously expressed his concerns and gave Pan Jieying a quick lesson on the law. He couldn't claim to know much about Dongyi's law, but he had lived there for a year and a half.

Dongyi's ethical laws were actually much stricter than China's. For instance, while China's Criminal Law only recognized the crime of rape, Dongyi's law retained the crime of adultery. (Note: This crime, known as "offense against marriage and family," was a private prosecution case—meaning the state wouldn't intervene unless it was reported. The same applied to Dongyi; in reality, it was rarely prosecuted, and the crime was finally abolished in Dongyi's February 2015 criminal law amendment.)

China was more Westernized in its ethical laws than Dongyi, which could be considered one of the few positive contributions of the chaotic decade: it broke down many of the "old" remnants of feudalism.

When Gu Cheng had just finished his call with Kwon Bo-ah, he hadn't understood the sorrow in her words, so he had quickly hidden in the restroom to look up Dongyi's laws online. To his shock, he discovered that Dongyi's current law still prohibited marriage between fourth-degree collateral relatives. This was completely different from his knowledge of the future, as he remembered that by the time he was young in that future, such bans had long been removed.

Gu Cheng didn't have a search engine built into his brain, so he didn't know that this clause was only removed during Dongyi's legal reform in 2008.

For now, he only knew that this law was currently in place but would be gone in the future. He shared what he knew with his cousin, selecting the parts he could talk about.

"Dongyi's laws are stricter than ours. It’s just our generation's bad luck to run into this statute. In the early 90s, this wasn't even an issue. Back then, their Marriage Law stipulated that 'collateral relatives of different surnames within three generations' and 'collateral relatives of the same surname within five generations' could not marry—meaning cousins had to be at least six generations apart, and maternal cousins had to be at least four. Later, some Dongyi feminist group or another claimed that the unequal treatment of paternal and maternal cousins was gender discrimination, and that aunts should be as close as uncles. As a result, they made a sweeping change requiring all cousins to be six generations apart..."

That was infuriating! Pan Jieying was stunned: "So... is there really no turning point for this?"

"Theoretically, there is a turning point, but it's very slim. First of all, our country is likely the hardest in the world to obtain nationality from; it almost never accepts immigration under any conditions, far more difficult than a US Green Card. Even if Xiao Ya wanted to become a Chinese citizen for the rest of her life, it would be absolutely impossible. If she really didn't care about the cost, the only way would be for her to work in Fusang and obtain Fusang nationality through 'technical immigration'—the Fusang marriage law doesn't restrict anything; even cousins like us could legally marry. But the key is how she feels about it. If she doesn't have feelings for me and isn't willing to sacrifice that much, why should I force it? It's not like I can't find another woman."

Gu Cheng didn't notice that as he explained the legal nuances, Pan Jieying's face changed several times, and she almost couldn't sit still from the embarrassment of her own filthy thoughts.

"It's good that you can think that way. Then let's just let this matter pass. Xiao Ya is still young, let's see in a couple of years. If you don't want to make things difficult for her, just keep everything as it is. After all, you were already close friends; there's no reason to lose that friendship just because you're distant cousins. Just let nature take its course."

Pan Jieying finished her summary in a rush, squeezed her sore legs together, pulled her skirt down, and walked to the window, staring out at the view to pretend she was being profound. Why did the boundaries of the law sometimes become so inexplicable? Pan Jieying couldn't figure it out no matter how hard she tried.

"Thanks, I feel much better," Gu Cheng said politely to his cousin. He stood up, dusted off the wrinkles on his clothes, and decided not to dwell on these troublesome matters for the time being.

Everything would work out in the end. For now, he should just be better to the people around him. He walked over to Cherry’s hospital bed, offered a few words of comfort, and peeled an orange for her to eat. Not long after, the attending physician came in for rounds, confirmed Cherry’s vital signs one last time, and said politely to Gu Cheng and Pan Jieying, "The recovery is excellent. Once you sign the papers, you can proceed with the discharge formalities."