Transmigrated as the Campus Heartthrob’s Cannon Fodder Ex-Boyfriend Chapter 70

Shoutout to Kari for the commission!

The day they decided to register their marriage was a sunny noon.

With graduation approaching, Le Cheng no longer went to school very often. He had become involved in the early stages of production for a new game and was incredibly busy.

When they finally had some free time, the two of them stayed home for two days.

A cat café had opened nearby, so Le Cheng dragged Zhou Shirui along to go pet the cats. On the way home, Le Cheng kept pulling stray hairs off his clothes while imagining the wonderful life they would have with a cat in the future.

They happened to stop at a red light. Zhou Shirui turned to look at him and reached over to lower the air conditioning slightly. Le Cheng leaned over and told him to close his eyes, saying that there was a strand of hair stuck to his eyelashes.

Zhou Shirui did as he was told. He felt something soft brush past him, and then suddenly heard Le Cheng say, “Why don’t we go register our marriage?”

He abruptly opened his eyes, prompting Le Cheng to unhappily smack his shoulder. “What are you doing? You almost poked yourself in the eye!”

Zhou Shirui let him hit him. The light turned green, and the car behind them honked, so he started the car first.

When they got home, as soon as they entered the foyer, Le Cheng was lowering his head to change his shoes when someone hugged him from behind. Zhou Shirui wrapped his arms around his waist and rested his chin on his shoulder, his breath brushing against Le Cheng’s cheek. “When are we going?”

Le Cheng took a moment to realize what he meant. After putting on his slippers, he said, “Anytime is fine. But we probably need to make an appointment first, right? Let’s go to Country R to register our marriage.”

Zhou Shirui said, “Anywhere is fine.”

Before this, Zhou Shirui had brought up getting married once before, about a year earlier. But at the time, both of them were busy, so nothing came of it. Zhou Shirui had also reflected that perhaps he had been too eager, so he had continued to hold himself back.

The process of registering their marriage in Country R was relatively complicated. They made an appointment first, then waited for a response.

After making three trips back and forth, they finally signed the documents and waited for the approval letter. By the time they received their marriage certificate, more than a month had already passed.

The marriage certificate in Country R was different from the one in China. It was more like some kind of certificate of proof. There was no booklet, only a thin sheet of paper.

But even so, somewhere in the world, they had officially become a legally married couple.

Le Cheng had searched in advance to see what a marriage certificate from Country R looked like, but when he actually held it in his hands, he still found it funny. “It really is just a piece of paper!”

Zhou Shirui took the paper from him. He seemed very pleased with it and placed it in the folder he carried with him, as though it were something incredibly precious.

Le Cheng looked at his expression. Zhou Shirui’s face was calm, and unlike Le Cheng, he didn’t look particularly excited. He was just the same as always.

But on the drive back to the hotel, Le Cheng suddenly heard Zhou Shirui say, “We just got the certificate.”

Le Cheng paused, then nodded. “Yeah.”

After a while, Zhou Shirui said again, “So we’re legally married now.”

“Yeah.”

Zhou Shirui remained completely calm. So, over the course of a drive that was less than three kilometers long, he calmly repeated those two sentences eight times, while the corners of his lips gradually curled upward.

***

Both sets of parents knew that they had gone to register their marriage. Le Cheng even took photos and sent them to Cao Fanqin and Le Shuhai.

Cao Fanqin called and asked, “Why doesn’t it look like the marriage certificate we have here?”

“It’s a foreign country, after all.” Le Cheng sat on the sofa while Zhou Shirui watched TV with him. As he spoke, he casually caught Zhou Shirui’s fingers and played with them. “It really isn’t as pretty as the two red booklets.”

Le Shuhai’s voice came through the phone. “It’s fine. Having a certificate is always a good thing.”

“Of course. Nothing else matters.” Le Cheng agreed, slipping his fingers between Zhou Shirui’s and giving them a squeeze.

After hanging up, Le Cheng wanted to get some water when Zhou Shirui suddenly asked him, “Do you want to make another pair of rings?”

Le Cheng froze. “We need to make new ones too?”

Zhou Shirui nodded, his tone serious. “We’re married now. We should wear new ones.”

Le Cheng laughed. “Then we’ll have three pairs of rings!”

Zhou Shirui pinched his cheek. “From now on, we’ll wear the new ones. We’ll choose them together.”

Le Cheng agreed. The two of them were remarkably efficient. They went to have new rings custom-made the very next day, and received them in less than two weeks.

At last, they no longer had to worry about taking turns wearing their rings.

But Zhou Shirui’s “aftereffects” from getting married went far beyond that.

Although they were married, Zhou Shirui was usually the one who organized all their documents and certificates. Le Cheng didn’t know where he kept them. Besides, it was only a thin sheet of paper, and compared with the red marriage booklets in China, it lacked a little sense of ceremony. So aside from looking at it on the day they received it, Le Cheng never paid much attention to it afterward.

But not long after they registered their marriage, one night when Le Cheng happened to wake up to use the bathroom, he groggily climbed out of bed and discovered that Zhou Shirui wasn’t there. He was startled and rubbed his eyes as he walked out.

A faint light came from the study. He pushed the door open and saw Zhou Shirui wearing his glasses and looking at that piece of paper.

Le Cheng walked over and rested his chin on Zhou Shirui’s shoulder. He was so sleepy that he could barely think straight. Yawning repeatedly, he asked, “Why did you come look at this in the middle of the night?”

“I woke up, so I just took a look,” Zhou Shirui said.

“Then hurry back to bed…” Le Cheng rubbed his eyes. Like a koala, he hung his entire body off Zhou Shirui and whined, “I’m so sleepy.”

Zhou Shirui agreed, put the certificate away, and Le Cheng reached up to take off his glasses. He kissed his soft, thick eyelashes, then pulled him by the hand toward the bedroom. “Time for bed.”

Le Cheng thought it had only happened once. But then he discovered that Zhou Shirui seemed to have made looking at their marriage certificate part of his daily routine. Whenever he had nothing else to do, he liked taking it out to look at it.

It made Le Cheng want to laugh, but also left him feeling touched. A month after they registered their marriage, he watched helplessly as the already somewhat flimsy piece of paper was nearly developing frayed edges from being handled so often.

So the next time he caught Zhou Shirui looking at their marriage certificate, Le Cheng stepped forward, pressed his hand down on it, then plopped himself onto the desk, blocking the marriage certificate completely.

“We can’t look at it anymore.” Le Cheng declared righteously. “If I remember correctly, this is already the 78th time you’ve looked at it this month!”

From this angle, Zhou Shirui had to tilt his head up slightly to look at him. His broad palm wrapped around Le Cheng’s waist as he asked, “Did you make up that number yourself?”

Le Cheng looked away, his voice lowering as he said guiltily, “What do you mean, make it up?”

Zhou Shirui said nothing. Le Cheng held his gaze for two seconds before mumbling very quietly, “…How did you know I made it up?”

Zhou Shirui curved his lips into a smile and reached his hand beneath the hem of Le Cheng’s shirt, speaking nonchalantly. “Oh? You actually dared to falsify the data. You deserve to be punished.”

Le Cheng didn’t care about anything else. “Then punish me! Either way, you just can’t look at it anymore! You’ve already rubbed the edges of the marriage certificate until they’re frayed…”

Zhou Shirui deliberately said, “So you’re worried about the paper.”

Le Cheng refused to admit it, and he was also extremely curious about how Zhou Shirui knew he had made up the number. He was picked up and pressed onto the sofa beside them, only then hearing Zhou Shirui bite lightly at his ear and mumble, “Because I counted. It was 53 times.”

Le Cheng’s eyes grew watery from being pushed against, and he bit his finger, secretly cursing Zhou Shirui as a pervert in his heart for actually counting how many times he looked at their marriage certificate.

That night, no one knew what connection Zhou Shirui had suddenly made in his mind, but he seemed to be struck by inspiration. He pressed him down and made him call him the term a partner should be called during the marriage.

Le Cheng absolutely refused to call him that. At first, he was very unwilling, but after being teased and bullied until the end, he still called him “husband” in a soft voice, while quietly urging Zhou Shirui to go faster, his lips and cheeks flushed and looking pitiful.

After that, Zhou Shirui’s habit of loving to look at the marriage certificate was successfully cured, but he developed another habit of loving to hear Le Cheng call him “husband.”

Le Cheng tried to negotiate with him. “How about you just look at the marriage certificate instead?”

Zhou Shirui refused, deliberately being difficult as he said, “No.”

Le Cheng deeply understood what it meant to be unwilling to sacrifice the bait to catch the wolf.

During the hottest month, Le Cheng successfully graduated. The reason they had delayed holding their wedding for so long was also because the weather was too hot. Le Cheng was unwilling to go anywhere, whether indoors or outdoors, so Zhou Shirui postponed the plan.

Their graduation certificates were red and quite large. Le Cheng took out Zhou Shirui’s graduation certificate and placed it beside his own, smiling as he said, “Doesn’t it look quite a bit like an enlarged version of a marriage certificate?”

Zhou Shirui looked at it seriously. “It does.”

Le Cheng had only mentioned it casually, but the next day, he discovered Zhou Shirui had spread the two graduation certificates out on the study desk, looking thoughtful.

Le Cheng nervously walked in, afraid that he had developed some strange new hobby again. He cautiously poked his head in and asked him, “Why are you looking at these? Why have you started looking at graduation certificates now?”

Zhou Shirui did not answer him directly. Le Cheng observed him for several days, and seeing that Zhou Shirui had not gotten up in the middle of the night again, he finally put his mind at ease.

However, this also gave him an idea.

He was in the art industry himself, so when it came to making certain things, he was quite skilled.

So one peaceful morning, while Zhou Shirui was cooking, Le Cheng tiptoed out and quietly placed something on the dining table. 

When Zhou Shirui came out carrying the porridge, his gaze fell on the dining table, and then he suddenly froze.

He stood still and reached out, picking up the two little red booklets.

They were a very proper shade of red, with the three characters “Marriage Certificate” written on them. A very official-looking seal was also printed underneath. However, inside the seal, there was a little squirrel on the left clinging to the circular frame with both paws, while on the right was an adorable, cartoonish little wolf. The entire circular frame was woven from vines, making it look fresh and cute.

Zhou Shirui seemed to have frozen in place. His well-defined fingers opened the inner pages, where the certificate holders’ names, registration date, marriage certificate number, and their respective information had all been written with great seriousness.

The photo on the marriage certificate was also Le Cheng’s hand-drawn version, with two chibi little figures, their heads touching, smiling with their eyes curved into crescents.

Le Cheng had been peeking from beside the wall for quite some time. Seeing Zhou Shirui remain motionless, he thought he might have gotten something wrong. Unable to resist, he walked over and poked his head out to take a look, only to find that everything was correct.

Le Cheng awkwardly scratched his cheek. “Although it’s pretty childish, I spent a whole week making it.”

Zhou Shirui’s Adam’s apple moved, and he said very softly, “…It’s not childish.”

“Not childish at all.”

How could something made with such sincerity be childish?

Le Cheng began rambling, “I thought, since you like marriage certificates so much, I could just make one myself. And then I could draw it however I wanted…”

He rambled on and on, while Zhou Shirui took his hand and led him to the bedroom. He reached beneath the pillow and took something out.

Le Cheng froze. Because those were also two small, pale-red booklets. At first glance, they were almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

But upon closer inspection, he found that they were written in a foreign language. Zhou Shirui explained, “…D Country’s marriage certificate is the most similar. I thought you might like it.”

Because the procedures were different there, D Country did not require both parties to appear in person to process the paperwork. They only needed to provide the required documents, but they still had to make repeated trips back and forth. Le Cheng understood.

“So when you said you’d been going on business trips all the time lately, you were actually going there to take care of this?”

“Mm.” Zhou Shirui nodded.

Having such a clear realization that he was loved, knowing that even the smallest things were kept in mind, left Le Cheng not knowing what to say. He had always been easily moved to tears, and his eyes were slightly red. He simply pushed Zhou Shirui to the edge of the bed, straddled his thighs, and said in a muffled voice, “Other people only have one pair of marriage certificates. We have three pairs.”

Zhou Shirui stroked his hair. “Mm. We’re a marriage-certificate family.”

Le Cheng laughed at his serious tone. Zhou Shirui bounced him lightly with his leg, pressed his forehead against Le Cheng’s, and praised him, “You’re still cuter when you smile.”

Le Cheng deliberately asked, “What about when I don’t smile?”

Zhou Shirui answered seriously, “When you don’t smile, you’re very beautiful.”

His words made Le Cheng blush.

After breakfast, Le Cheng found several picture frames and decided to frame all of their marriage certificates and put them somewhere conspicuous. That way, it would both prevent Zhou Shirui from becoming addicted to taking them out and looking at them in the middle of the night, and make the certificates conspicuous without wasting the thought they had both put into them.

Zhou Shirui agreed and helped him, but Le Cheng soon became conflicted.

“What is it?”

Le Cheng said hesitantly, “Which one should we put first?”

Zhou Shirui suggested, “Put the one you drew first.”

Le Cheng refused. Just then, the phone rang. Zhou Shirui went to answer it. It was something related to the studio. He spoke for a while before coming back to see how Le Cheng had arranged everything.

In the end, Le Cheng arranged them according to chronological order. When he saw Zhou Shirui, he happily jogged over, pointed at the framed certificates on the cabinet, and sweetly asked, “Does it look good?”

The sunlight fell across half of Le Cheng’s face, and the fine, translucent hairs on his skin shimmered golden. Zhou Shirui reached out and pinched his cheek lightly, making Le Cheng glare at him. Zhou Shirui answered with his lips, “Looks good.”

“Which one looks good?”

Zhou Shirui said, “All look good.”

Only then did Le Cheng happily scamper away.

Zhou Shirui watched his cheerful retreating figure, his heart softening. Just like before, his answer had not been entirely about the picture frames.