Because both Yan Wenhua and Song Chunxiang had learned about each other’s children’s romantic partners before the parents met, this long-delayed weekend parent meeting went extremely smoothly.

With time having passed, Yan Wenhua had dated someone else afterward, as had Song Chunxiang. Now both were single again without complicated interpersonal relationships, so they weren’t particularly awkward with each other. Instead, they had the familiarity of old friends. Not being able to become spouses, being friends was more suitable for both.

Because of this special relationship, the parent meeting had a very relaxed and harmonious atmosphere. Yan Wenhua was extremely satisfied with Yu Tian, and Song Chunxiang, as a mother-in-law looking at her son-in-law, was increasingly pleased.

Although Yan Ming and Yu Tian hadn’t made any concrete plans about marriage and subsequent matters, Yan Wenhua and Song Chunxiang were quite proactive, even beginning to plan what names to give their future grandchildren…

Since Yu Tian’s father had passed away, naturally, only Song Chunxiang attended the parent meeting. Although Yan Ming’s parents were divorced, his mother was still alive, but Yu Tian didn’t get to meet Yan Ming’s mother this time.

“Yan Ming’s mother has been living in France this year. She probably won’t return for another month or so. I’m sorry. I contacted his mother too, but she really can’t get away and can’t fly back temporarily for this parent meeting. Please bear with us, you and Xiao Yu. Yan Ming’s mother is also very much looking forward to meeting Yan Ming’s girlfriend. As soon as she returns to the country, we’ll arrange for everyone to meet again immediately!”

Yan Wenhua was very apologetic about this and kept explaining. Yu Tian had already heard Yan Ming mention this, so she didn’t mind much. Besides, she still felt somewhat nervous about her future potential mother-in-law.

After all, from Yan Ming’s occasional words, his mother seemed to be a very independent, distinctive, and excellent person. But the more excellent someone was, the higher their requirements and standards would be. Yu Tian was very worried about what would happen if Yan Ming’s mother had opinions about her.

Yan Ming was quite calm about this. After the historic parent meeting ended, Yan Ming walked with Yu Tian on the night market street, putting his arm around her shoulder: “My taste is inherited from my mother, and it’s even better than hers. I think my girlfriend is wonderful, even rushing to give myself a proper status, so naturally, my mother will be satisfied when she sees you too.”

Yu Tian was somewhat amused. As their relationship deepened, she discovered that Yan Ming wasn’t serious and unsmiling at all – he loved joking. Indeed, Yu Tian’s nervousness was slightly soothed.

However, a week later, the new news Yan Ming brought successfully made Yu Tian nervous again—

“My mother is flying back next week.”

Yan Ming also seemed somewhat expectant: “I haven’t seen her in a long time. I wonder how she’s been lately.”

While nervous, Yu Tian finally remembered a key question: “By the way, what does Auntie do for work? I want to cram and quickly research her field so that when I meet her later, I won’t have no topics or be completely ignorant about her industry, appearing both shallow and unprepared, showing no respect…”

However, regarding Yu Tian’s question, even Yan Ming, who never showed difficulty with complex eye surgeries, suddenly looked troubled: “To be honest, I find it hard to describe my mother’s profession because she has too many professions. She was an independent photographer for a while, went to Thailand as a diving instructor, painted oil paintings and held small exhibitions, got a barista certificate, worked as a child psychologist, was a designer, wrote lyrics for her friends’ songs, published poetry collections, translated literature… This time she went to France to study at Le Cordon Bleu because a year and a half ago, she suddenly vowed to become a pastry chef…”

“She’s tried a bit of every job, but none has made her want to do it for life. Her whole life has been spent exploring the next career and experiencing different roles.”

This sounded both romantic but also somewhat adventurous and unreliable.

Yan Ming was quite at ease: “Anyway, my mother is indeed not very reliable. For example, I still suspect she doesn’t remember what color I like or what I hate. But she also has many advantages – she knows a bit about everything, though none too deeply. If I had to name a lifelong career, I think her lifelong career is being an energetic, experienced, rich woman.”

This was truly… too enviable!

Yan Ming looked gently at Yu Tian: “So you don’t need to worry about having no topics, because there’s probably no one in this world she couldn’t chat with. She even studied pig farming, so even with farmers and livestock breeders, she’d have things to talk about.”

Studying pig farming… that was… quite a novel hobby.

Yan Ming also seemed somewhat helpless: “The pig farming was mainly for eating. She wanted to eat organic pork, so she actually raised one pig, even played classical music for it every day. But when it was ready for slaughter, she had developed feelings for the pig and couldn’t bear to eat it. She found a farmer’s family to foster it. Every year when she comes back from traveling around the world, the first thing she usually does is visit the pig, and only then does she come to see me.”

“…”

“So you don’t need to worry about my mother being picky about you. Besides you already being excellent enough, my mother probably doesn’t care as much about my romantic choices as my father thinks…”

Although it was somewhat tragic, Yan Ming’s words did comfort Yu Tian. She felt much better and immediately relaxed.

Soon, Yu Tian became busy with her studies again. With many things to do, she had no time to think about other matters. Plus, there were still a few days before Yan Ming’s mother returned to the country, so she didn’t think much about it and just waited to go to the airport with Yan Ming to pick her up.

A few days later, Yu Tian was wholeheartedly preparing for a charity medical education activity organized by the college. They would visit some migrant workers’ children’s schools and some rural township schools to explain basic medical knowledge to the children there, especially how to protect their eyes, prevent dental caries, and some simple post-injury treatment and first aid knowledge.

Rong City’s downtown was very prosperous, but in the remote suburbs, there were many very simple schools. The children’s parents often lived and worked in the city center year-round, leaving the children effectively left-behind children raised by elderly grandparents.

The elderly had poor health themselves and could barely take care of themselves, lacking good hygiene and medical concepts. Even though the children had annual health checkups provided by compulsory education, many elderly people wouldn’t follow up or take their children for further examinations regarding problems identified in checkups, missing the best intervention and treatment opportunities.

So if they could provide appropriate medical education to these elementary and middle school children from the source, making the children pay attention themselves, urging family members for further checkups, or handling some simple treatments themselves, it would be somewhat beneficial.

Especially some first aid knowledge, including CPR, the Heimlich maneuver, emergency treatment after poisoning, including some rescue safety phone numbers and common sense – although they hoped these children would never need to use these, if they encountered such emergencies and could save one life, it would be priceless.

The only thing that made Yu Tian somewhat regretful was that although she had already contributed a large portion of her self-media account’s traffic revenue share, and her classmates and the college had also donated some money, there were too many schools and children in Rong City’s surrounding suburbs. The money wasn’t quite enough to equip every classroom with a set of first aid devices and medicine boxes, especially since Yu Tian also wanted to give these children some small gifts.

However, before departure, class monitor Chen Gang brought Yu Tian exciting good news—

“We temporarily received a sponsorship!”

Chen Gang was practically beaming: “The sponsor is willing to make up for our insufficient funds for buying medicine boxes and has prepared some stationery, band-aids, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, and masks as small gifts for each child. Very thoughtful – they’ve packaged everything for us, one set per person.”

One set per person?!

That was quite generous!

Yu Tian was surprised: “Is it some enterprise?”

Corporate donations would usually put the company logo on donation packaging as a form of advertising. Also, Yu Tian knew that some large enterprises often needed to make charitable donations – first, it greatly improved corporate image, and second, charitable donation portions could be tax-deductible, killing two birds with one stone.

Yan Wenhua’s company had previously established a charity foundation and had recently donated a large sum to Yu Tian and Yan Ming’s alma mater for scholarships for impoverished medical students and research funding for some hospital laboratory projects. Because of this, Yu Tian hadn’t been comfortable mentioning this charity medical education campus activity to Yan Ming and Yan Wenhua again, afraid they would generously donate again.

But this time, there was unexpectedly another enterprise willing to donate – this was wonderful.

However, Chen Gang scratched his head and denied Yu Tian’s guess: “Not an enterprise, but an individual. A very elegant auntie who said her child was an alumnus who graduated from our school and found their other half at our school, so she has special feelings for our school. Since her child’s good news is approaching, she wanted to thank our school in this way.”

I see!

After Chen Gang explained this, the other classmates all became envious: “Wonder which senior student got together internally at school.”

“Exactly. What’s wrong with our year? Male-heavy and female-light is bad enough, and the few female classmates we have all have boyfriends. There’s no possibility of internal pairing.”

“We can still pair internally. Haven’t you heard? At first, you can’t find a partner, so you think about relaxing standards – as long as she’s female and alive. After three or four years of not finding anyone, you’ll think your roommate isn’t bad either!”

“…Lin Yang, what do you mean? Graduate dorms only have two people. I’m your only roommate. This thinking of yours is very dangerous, you know? I want to find a girlfriend! Even if you think I’m not bad, it’s useless!”

…

Several people joked around, and Yu Tian couldn’t help but laugh.

Before leaving, class monitor Chen Gang called Yu Tian over again: “By the way, this donating auntie heard that you’re also doing medical education self-media and wants to connect with you. Didn’t she hear that you also find patients who truly need donations from your live stream audience, then contact corresponding experts to formulate treatment plans with you funding the entire process? She seems quite interested and wants to discuss some cooperation.”

Yu Tian had recently been doing this kind of business coordination. The income from pure traffic revenue sharing was really limited, and they could do too little for impoverished patients. So, after discussing with Ren Yali recently, they decided to open donation cooperation channels.

They wouldn’t do advertisements or product placements, but if any companies were willing to donate, they would publicly thank the company by name in subsequent videos.

Because Yu Tian’s self-media account had already had several science education videos go viral, this had some appeal for companies wanting to make inroads with young online generations, gain a good reputation, and boost their presence. After all, the donation amounts Yu Tian wanted weren’t high, making it quite cost-effective.

Because of this, Yu Tian had already connected with several companies or individual donation prospects recently. Now, adding this one introduced by Chen Gang, she could arrange them all together.

To conveniently handle these business negotiations centrally, Yu Tian had already spent several weekends unable to spend time with Yan Ming. Each week, she met with two prospective donors in the café downstairs from her studio, determining cooperation details. If there were no problems, they would quickly finalize and sign written contracts.

However, since negotiating such cooperations was just starting and Yu Tian didn’t want to do product placements, not many had been successfully concluded.

This Saturday, she arranged to meet one enthusiastic male boss and the auntie Chen Gang had connected her with.

These two – the male boss had been very active and generous in previous online communications with Yu Tian. Yu Tian had researched his enterprise. Although it was manufacturing, it had high profit margins. He didn’t ask Yu Tian to advertise their products and seemed to simply want to do charity. The other auntie had already donated to Yu Tian’s college charity campus activity, proving she was indeed enthusiastic about charity.

Yu Tian thought both had quite high success probabilities, so she was quite energetic today.

The male boss was scheduled first. Meeting offline for the first time, he wore an expensive suit with a flashy Hermès men’s belt around his waist, a Rolex watch on his hand, and casually placed Ferrari car keys on the table. His whole body exuded wealth, and he was as enthusiastic toward Yu Tian as in their online chats.

However…

“Xiao Yu, I’ve been following you for a long time, since your first appearance at the platform’s live broadcast conference. I often waited in your live stream room.”

The man stared at Yu Tian with some complaint: “It’s a pity you don’t want to show your face in live streams much anymore. It’s quite a pity – if you showed your face, your live stream content would explode even more.”

Yu Tian wasn’t unfamiliar with such compliments. She smiled and expressed thanks, then tried to guide the conversation to business: “Mr. Wang, today I wanted to discuss donation cooperation. Whether you donate in your company’s name or personal name, we can put special thanks information in the opening or closing of future science education programs.”

“Also, if you have any other special requirements, please say them now.” Yu Tian had quite a business-like attitude. “Regarding amounts, we currently offer two thousand yuan, five thousand yuan, ten thousand yuan, and thirty thousand yuan options, corresponding to different numbers of recommendation periods and thank-you spots…”

Yu Tian was about to continue introducing these recommendation spots when the man across from her interrupted: “I’ll donate one million directly.”

Yu Tian was stunned. This was great news, but her first reaction was refusal: “This amount is too large. I think we’d need to establish a proper charity foundation to receive such money. Although our self-media studio has a small team, we don’t have dedicated personnel to handle accounting for such a large sum. We’re also afraid of handling it poorly and causing controversy or misunderstandings. Besides, we’re just starting to explore this cooperation model and don’t want to take too big steps. We want to take it slowly, step by step…”

“No problem. I don’t care whether you thank me in videos. This is just my first payment to you – I can continue giving later.” The man smiled, looking at Yu Tian’s face: “I just want to ask if you’re interested in earning some pocket money?”

Yu Tian’s brow furrowed.

The other party took her silence as consent and continued: “I can usually give you some pocket money. You just need to occasionally have dinner with me. Whether you use the money for charity or something else is up to you – I don’t care how you spend it.”

“Me, I don’t lack money and have plenty of time. Sometimes I get quite lonely. I think you and I should get along well.”

Yu Tian finally understood the subtext.

Yu Tian pressed her lips together and immediately turned cold: “I’m sorry, Mr. Wang. I’m not single. You might not have watched that platform live stream completely – my boyfriend was also there.”

“I know.” Unexpectedly, even after Yu Tian had said this much, he remained quite calm: “What I mean is, you having some pocket money doesn’t need to be known by your boyfriend. I don’t mind this kind of thing either. We’d just be friends – you understand, that kind of relatively relaxed friendship.”

He looked Yu Tian over: “I’ve noticed that the clothes you wear aren’t famous brands, and your necklace isn’t any brand name either – everything looks quite affordable. I know the internet says your boyfriend’s family is quite wealthy, but having money at home and being able to control money yourself, and having money versus being generous to girlfriends, are different things. Your clothing, food, housing, and transportation are all so simple. I think he probably doesn’t spend much money on you.”

The man smiled and changed topics: “But I’m different. I’ve already directly taken over managing my father’s company, and I’m very generous to excellent girls like you…”

Having a self-media account, Yu Tian had encountered various netizens and wasn’t unfamiliar with teasing or flirtatious comments. However, this was the first time she directly encountered someone who, under the guise of “charity donation,” was discussing being a sugar daddy.

Her more direct feeling than anger was disbelief.

Why did modern society still have such shallow men who felt so good about themselves, thinking they could move others with money? Such things that objectify women and completely don’t understand respect?

Originally thinking the other party was someone enthusiastic about charity, now with his true intentions revealed, Yu Tian finally understood his ulterior motives.

She became serious and was preparing to refute him when she heard the sound of a chair being moved and someone standing up behind her. High-heeled clicks were walking toward Yu Tian’s area.

“Try talking to young ladies like this again.”

Before Yu Tian could react, the owner of the high heels – a tall, elegant middle-aged woman – poured her entire drink from her table onto the man across from Yu Tian.

The man was caught off guard and instinctively jumped up, but still couldn’t escape – his coat was already splashed with drink stains.

He was furious: “What’s wrong with you?!”

However, the elegant middle-aged woman in a suit remained very calm: “I was just taking a video, sorry. My camera happened to be pointing in your direction, so your conversation just now was all recorded on my phone. It might be a bit far and there’s some noise here, but using professional software for noise reduction back home, it’ll be easy to hear clearly what you and this young lady were saying.”

“Do you need me to post it online for everyone to appreciate your generosity together?”

This refined and extraordinary auntie was sharp-tongued and aggressive, but also reasonable and well-founded.

The man knew he was in the wrong and, seeing her covered in jewelry and unable to determine her background, didn’t dare offend easily. He could only glare at Yu Tian and the auntie, then left in embarrassment.

After he left, Yu Tian could finally breathe a sigh of relief, followed by gratitude that such an auntie was willing to step forward and help her.

Yu Tian immediately thanked this auntie, who just smiled: “I just can’t stand people using donations as a pretext for shady business.”

She didn’t give Yu Tian a chance to interrupt and continued: “By the way, I forgot to mention – I’m the other donor you’re scheduled to meet later. But I don’t do fake things. I’m willing to donate the maximum amount of thirty thousand, but I don’t need you to thank me by name. I just hope…”

She paused before continuing: “I hope to give this opportunity to my son.”

So this was the donor who had donated to the charity campus project without hesitation!

And she had stepped forward to help Yu Tian out of trouble!

Yu Tian almost immediately developed a good impression of her.

What a coincidence!

The other party also seemed to have a decisive and heroic personality.

“So you hope I’ll thank your son?”

However, the other party shook her head: “No need. You just need to go on a date with my son today.”

!!!

Yu Tian couldn’t believe her ears: “What?”

The other party seemed to take it for granted: “For this donation cooperation, if mine doesn’t succeed, you’ll have to meet other donors, right? Then you’ll waste a lot of leisure time meeting all sorts of people, and the success rate isn’t guaranteed, so you’ll have to waste several more weekends meeting multiple waves of people.”

“So if I donate to you directly and cooperate with you, you won’t need to spend time finding others anymore. That freed-up time could be spent dating my son, right?”

Yu Tian was dumbfounded: “Auntie, you’ve misunderstood. What I said rejecting that person wasn’t fake – I really have a boyfriend, our relationship is very good, and we’ll be getting married soon…”

Unexpectedly, hearing these rejections made the other party smile: “Is that so? Then Yan Ming should feel relieved hearing this.”

She looked up at Yu Tian: “I forgot to mention – let me formally reintroduce myself. Since you’re about to marry your boyfriend, then hello, I’m your future mother-in-law.”

???

!!!

Yu Tian was completely stunned.

It was then that Yu Tian looked carefully at the other party and discovered that in the eyebrows and eyes, this elegant auntie indeed bore some resemblance to Yan Ming.

So she was…

“You’re Yan Ming’s mother?”

The lady across nodded: “Sorry, I know that according to the original flight plan, I shouldn’t have returned yet. But because I finished my courses in France early, I flew back immediately, two days early. I just forgot to tell Yan Ming and his father.”

Did you forget… or was it intentional…

Yan Ming’s mother somewhat sadly brushed her hair: “I always thought Yan Ming didn’t date because he wasn’t enlightened, thinking he might live a single life devoted to medicine. But I didn’t expect him to give me such a big surprise. Before, he said things like ‘men are like flowers at forty, marrying at forty isn’t late,’ but now he’s so eager to get married.”

“I didn’t believe it when his father told me, but seeing you, I believe it. If I were a man, I might do what that man just did – even knowing you have a boyfriend, I might try to interfere, just not using such stupid methods as that man.”

Yan Ming’s mother seemed thoughtful: “I’d hire an actor to play someone with designs on you, and I’d happen to be there for heroic rescue…”

“…”

She sighed: “Fortunately, Yan Ming hasn’t encountered any strong, scheming opponents yet.”

“So, besides buying your time so you have extra leisure time to date Yan Ming, I also want to buy thank-you mentions in several episodes of your program. If you’re willing, could you write ‘Special thanks to future mother-in-law Ms. Qin’?”

Ms. Qin sighed: “You see, one’s son still needs his mother to protect. He always holds grudges about me not remembering his favorite color. What’s the use of remembering his favorite color? Isn’t it enough if I remember the girl he likes? At critical moments, amn’t I the one supporting him and preventing others from poaching or bullying his girlfriend?”

“…”

Ms. Qin seemed to remember something important and pulled out a thick red envelope from her bag: “Donations are donations – this is a meeting gift. But I was rushing back and didn’t have time to exchange currency. These are euros – I’ll have to trouble you to exchange them yourself.”

So this was a packet of euros, and so thick…

Ms. Qin looked at the somewhat shocked Yu Tian and smiled: “I just messaged Yan Ming – he’s coming right over. I bought movie tickets online for a nearby cinema in half an hour and sent the pickup code to Yan Ming. You two just enjoy today’s leisure time and have a nice date.”

Yu Tian was still somewhat dazed: “Then, Auntie, are you leaving? Won’t you have dinner with us?”

“No.” Ms. Qin pressed her lips together: “Actually, I have many things to do after returning. Besides coordinating with your class monitor to donate to your college’s charity activity and meeting you today, I haven’t even seen Yan Ming and his father yet. Even my return was only known to Yan Ming because I just messaged him.”

“I can see Yan Ming anytime – I’m not going abroad again after returning this time, so there will be plenty of opportunities in the future. Now I need to hurry and see Qiuqiu first.”

Saying this, she smiled and praised Yu Tian a few more times, expressing her heartfelt wishes for Yu Tian and Yan Ming to achieve their happy ending soon, then told Yu Tian she needed to catch transportation and said goodbye.

Moments later, Yan Ming indeed arrived breathlessly—

“Where’s my mother?”

Yu Tian thought for a moment: “Auntie said she was going to see Qiuqiu. Is that a friend of hers or some relative’s child? She sounded very urgent and said she needed to catch transportation.”

“Mm, quite normal. I told you my mother cares more about pigs than me.”

“?”

Yan Ming said flatly: “Qiuqiu is the pig my mother raised.”

“…”

“But she helped me drive away someone who wanted to bully you and bought movie tickets for me. I think her going to see the pig more isn’t unacceptable.”

Yan Ming leaned close to Yu Tian’s face and kissed her: “Next time you want to discuss cooperation, you can bring me along.” He paused, as if making some decision, and said in a deep voice: “Also, there’s something I must tell you now.”

Yu Tian was about to ask what it was when she saw Yan Ming, regardless of the surrounding environment, squat down in front of her, kneeling on one knee. Then he produced a velvet box from somewhere. Opening it, Yu Tian saw a large carat diamond ring inside—

“I know proposals should be carefully designed, in a wonderful, expensive restaurant with the place booked, atmosphere arranged, friends and family invited, preferably with electronic screens displaying proposal messages – the more grand, solemn, and formal the better. It shouldn’t be casual and impromptu like now.”

Yan Ming looked into Yu Tian’s eyes: “I also wanted to arrange everything for the most perfect time. I’ve even been secretly investigating potential proposal venues one by one recently. But Yu Tian, I found I still can’t wait, because there never seems to be the most suitable time and place. I’m afraid that by the time I find these, there will be several more men circling you.”

“My mother briefly told me about what you encountered in this restaurant today, and I felt I really couldn’t wait anymore. At that moment, I couldn’t think of anything else. I ran here, just wanting to see you quickly, propose, and settle our relationship. I even wished the civil affairs bureau was still open so I could drag you there to get our marriage certificate immediately.”

“When I got here, I realized I hadn’t even bought a bouquet of proposal roses.”

“I know this makes everything seem rushed; such a proposal is too impulsive. But my rationality seems to have failed. I have only one thought – I want to marry you, hear you call me husband, let everyone know you and I belong to each other. No matter what problems you encounter, I can righteously stand up to protect you.”

Yan Ming said many things in succession. His chest was still heaving from running here earlier, and his voice also carried some unsteady breathing. He looked somewhat nervous but earnestly and attentively looked at Yu Tian, waiting for an answer.

As if to increase his bargaining chips, he pressed his lips together and tried hard to showcase his advantages—

“I know that as a doctor, I don’t have much leisure time and can’t take care of you comprehensively, but please give me a chance. I’ll work hard to become a good husband. Will you marry me?”

Yu Tian was caught off guard by everything, but after the surprise came joy and indescribable emotion.

They say girls accepting proposals also need psychological preparation and time. Yu Tian had recently been vaguely feeling that Yan Ming would probably plan a proposal. However, when this moment came, she discovered that no preparation was needed, because her heart had already been prepared long ago. Anytime, anywhere, as long as it was Yan Ming, she would say yes.

Therefore, Yu Tian didn’t hesitate and took Yan Ming’s ring box: “As a medical student who will pursue academics in the future, I might also not have much leisure time and can’t take comprehensive care of you, but I’m willing to accept this challenge and work hard to become a good wife too.”

She said solemnly: “I do.”

There was no better, more suitable occasion or time, because this moment was it.

The perfect proposal doesn’t need flowers, lights, cheering crowds, signs, and candles – it only needs two people in love.