Self-Perception - Chapter 57

Wen Jinyan and Gu Wansheng didn’t know when they had been pushed to the front of the crowd or more accurately, squeezed to the front.

“This test needs four couples to help participate,” said a middle-aged woman dressed in bright red, her face powdered, wearing a beaming smile.

Three young couples quickly and voluntarily stepped forward. This was meant to be a joyous occasion, so there wasn’t much hesitation.

“Brother Zhang and Sister Xiuzhen, you go up!!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Another voice emerged: “Forget it, forget it. We won’t go up; we’re already in our forties, we shouldn’t join in.”

“Hey, Wansheng, why don’t you two go?” The girl who had been explaining things to them earlier appeared by their side again.

“We don’t know the rules,” Gu Wansheng said with a polite smile.

“It’s just for fun, to soak up the happiness of the couple,” the girl continued.

Wen Jinyan squeezed the web of Gu Wansheng’s hand between her thumb and index finger. “Let’s go soak up the joy.”

While they were talking, no other couple had stepped forward. Gu Wansheng led Wen Jinyan to the front. When the middle-aged woman saw Gu Wansheng, she nodded in greeting.

Wen Jinyan pressed her shoulder against Gu Wansheng’s and lowered her voice. “Does that auntie know you too?”

“Yes,” came a soft affirmation.

Wen Jinyan: “Does everyone in this village know you?”

“Yes,” Gu Wansheng replied with a light, upward lilt in her tone.

“Alright, alright! The four couples pick one person each to come with me. The remaining four will stay with the bride; Sister Zhang will lead you later.”

Wen Jinyan watched as the other three couples quickly made their choices. She figured those staying behind would participate in a test with the bride. She looked at Gu Wansheng. Gu Wansheng’s gaze flickered over the other couples before returning to her.

“How about I stay and you go with that auntie?”

Gu Wansheng patted her shoulder. “You go. Just in case the test involves physical labor later.”

Wen Jinyan: “…”

Well, Gu Wansheng’s stamina was indeed better than hers.

Once the people were chosen, Wen Jinyan left with the middle-aged woman. Liu Min stood in place holding flowers, surrounded by the three partners from the other couples. They began discussing what this year’s test would be.

“I hope the first stage isn’t ‘identifying your person by their hands’ again. Last year, when I just started dating my partner, we participated and I picked the wrong person. He still nags me about it every year,” said a woman with a mullet haircut.

The others laughed. Gu Wansheng stood beside them, listening; she could easily imagine the scene.

“This is Sister Wansheng’s first time, right?” the woman with the mullet turned the topic to Gu Wansheng.

Gu Wansheng replied, “Yes. Luckily I just returned this year in time for Liu Min’s wedding to share in the bride’s joy.”

“Then Sister Wansheng, you better look closely for your partner later. Don’t end up like me.”

“Sister Wansheng is already married, their relationship is very stable. You think they’re like you, still chasing a wife?” Liu Min joked.

“Married?!” The other three were quite surprised.

Gu Wansheng admitted it gracefully. “Yes, I am a married woman.”

After a few minutes of chatting, they saw Sister Zhang come over to call them. “The bride and the four girls are ready. Bride, let’s go.”

Liu Min followed Sister Zhang, and Gu Wansheng walked by their side. The “human wall” of villagers parted automatically as they followed behind Liu Min. The path wasn’t long, only a few hundred meters and Gu Wansheng could see the middle-aged woman from earlier at the end of the road.

As they got closer, things became clearer.

In front of them were six red strings. Each string passed through a sheet of A4 paper with writing on it. Gu Wansheng’s gaze followed the strings inward; they were about ten meters long, with the other ends hidden behind a screen, out of sight.

After meeting up with the middle-aged woman, Sister Zhang spoke to Liu Min. “Behind me are six red strings. Each string corresponds to one person. The papers have words written by each of the girls. The bride needs to identify them through the handwriting to find her bride.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t even tell by feeling hands last time. This time it’s handwriting,” the mullet-haired woman lamented.

The other two women comforted her. “It’s for the celebration. Even if your girlfriend hits you later, you deserve it.”

After hearing the rules, Liu Min was the first to walk to the first string. She picked up the paper, it had the character “Joy” written on it. She studied it for a few minutes before moving to the second, third, and fourth. They all had the same character.

Sister Zhang added, “The bride and the girls all wrote the same character. This is the moment to test if your hearts are truly in sync.”

Gu Wansheng followed behind Liu Min, looking at the characters one by one. The first “Joy” was unremarkable, the strokes were a bit stiff, like someone used to scribbling who was suddenly trying to write formally.

In her mind, Gu Wansheng passed on the first one.

She had seen Wen Jinyan’s handwriting when Wen Jinyan was writing her novels on the computer. Wen Jinyan had a small notebook where she wrote outlines, chapter details, and plot points. She wrote quickly by hand, but the characters weren’t messy, they were elegant and well-structured. Sometimes, when thinking of details, she would circle a word, her pen nib dropping into the circle rhythmically, leaving dots of ink.

She would lean her left elbow on the table, propping her chin in her palm, her eyelids drooping with a lazy, relaxed energy.

Gu Wansheng would just watch her, her eyes following her, mentally noting how many times the pen hit the paper and how many times it lifted. She wondered how many times that writer used those pen lifts to escape the “traps” she set for herself in her plots.

At her fastest, the pen hit the paper only ten times, at her slowest, it lifted and fell forty times.

Gu Wansheng walked to the fourth red string and stopped.

In just one second, she found it.

Having found Wen Jinyan, Gu Wansheng wasn’t in a hurry. She looked at Liu Min, who was gripping the third string tightly, lost in thought. She walked over and whispered to Liu Min, who nodded.

Once she secured Wen Jinyan’s string, Gu Wansheng looked at the other three. The woman with the mullet was torn between the first and second, too focused to notice Gu Wansheng’s blatant confidence.

“I feel like it’s the second one, but the first one looks similar too.”

The other two women were also struggling. The surrounding villagers started teasing: “Tang Wen, are you going to leave another ‘glorious’ mark on history today?”

Tang Wen glared at them. “How is that possible? How could I not know my girlfriend’s handwriting?”

“Hey, the bride chose!” someone shouted. The villagers’ attention returned to Liu Min, who was holding the third string.

“Bride, are you sure?” Sister Zhang asked.

Liu Min’s voice was slightly unsteady, but she held it together. She nodded. “Yes, I’m sure it’s her.”

Standing beside her, Gu Wansheng saw out of the corner of her eye that Liu Min’s hand holding the string was trembling slightly.

“Good! Then pull the string and bring the girl out. Let’s see if it’s the bride!”

Liu Min was instinctively nervous, her palms sweaty. She looked toward the screen, barely able to make out a silhouette. What if she was wrong? No, she wouldn’t be wrong.

As the distance closed and she pushed aside the screen, the person she longed for was right there. Liu Min let out a long sigh of relief, her tension and doubt turning into pure joy. She and Lu Qing, both in white dresses, took each other’s hands and walked toward the second stage.

Gu Wansheng watched them fade from view before reaching for the fourth red string. After all, for a wedding this big, they were the protagonists.

Her hand bumped into Tang Wen’s, who was also reaching out. Tang Wen looked embarrassed, but she quickly withdrew her hand. The reason she pulled back was because she saw Gu Wansheng’s eyes, they were calm and radiating a confidence that seemed to say: “This is my wife!”

Gu Wansheng gathered the red string quickly without hesitation. She stood before the screen and pushed it open. When Wen Jinyan saw her, her eyes instantly lit up.

“Found you.”

Liu Min and Lu Qing were the first to pass, followed by Gu Wansheng and Wen Jinyan. The other three couples arrived around the same time. Sister Zhang gave red envelopes to the five couples, the first place winners got two extra red-dyed eggs.

“I wish you a harmonious union for a hundred years,” Sister Zhang said with a smile.

“Thank you,” Liu Min and Lu Qing replied.

“I wish you four couples that all your wishes come true,” Sister Zhang said. These words came easily to her, but every blessing felt sincere.

“A hundred years of harmony!!” “One heart forever!!” “Together always!!” “Live a good life!!”

The villagers offered their most genuine blessings. Afterward, the couple had to serve tea to their parents, while the villagers gradually left the house to head to the dam for the wedding feast.

“You’ve been staring at me the whole way. What do you want to ask, Yan Yan?” Gu Wansheng and Wen Jinyan were sitting at a table on the inner side.

“How did you find me?” Wen Jinyan sat on a plastic stool, elbows on her thighs, leaning in to whisper to Gu Wansheng.

“Want to know?” Gu Wansheng looked at those amber eyes, which clearly had “I want to know” written all over them.

“I want to know,” Wen Jinyan confirmed.

“Do you know your own writing habits?” Bowls were handed out. Gu Wansheng carefully rinsed Wen Jinyan’s bowl with boiling water from a nearby thermos before doing her own.

The bowl was still hot from the water. Wen Jinyan cupped it with both hands to warm them.

“My writing habits?” Wen Jinyan thought for a moment. “When I’m writing a detailed outline and get stuck on a plot point, I circle the words.”

“When you write a general or detailed outline, you always leave a light ‘tap’ at the bottom right of the last character.”

She would also leave a period under that tap, giving the work a clear beginning and end.

Wen Jinyan froze. She had almost forgotten that habit herself. It was a habit from her days as a screenwriter. Now, because she wrote most of her web novels on a computer, she rarely had the chance to write by hand, to the point she’d forgotten her “second” writing habit.

This habit was actually her original one, the circling habit only appeared after that event.

Wen Jinyan asked, “How did you know about that habit?”

Gu Wansheng didn’t speak. She gave a light cough, her gaze instinctively darting away.

Wen Jinyan realized something. “So… you’ve been paying attention to me since the moment we got married?”