Wild Creatures

Chapter 77

Lan Zhan knew immediately that something was wrong.

He'd had to stop because a very heavily made up woman was standing in front of them, blocking their way.

But from the moment she spoke, Wei Ying tensed up like a violin string, taut and pulled too tight.

The woman was dressed in a deep purple gown with a slit down the middle revealing paler shifts of gauzy lilac chiffon, pulled across her slim body like a corset. It flared out from her waist and was held together by an amethyst belt. Her sleeves were long and flowing and yet all the effort she had made to put herself together was destroyed by the slash of her plum-coated mouth and the venom in her damson eyes, glittering with malice.

Lan Zhan hated her on sight.

He pulled Wei Ying behind him slightly, as much as the lack of space allowed.

Wei Ying was startled because she had caught him completely off guard, and he hadn't been expecting to see her at all, let alone here, and like this.

The woman who had always hated him for something unknown, unfathomable reason. He had never managed to figure out why she hated him, though.

And the shock of hearing her poisonous words took him straight back to his youth, and the frequent times he had gotten punished for, according to her, his wayward behaviour.

He had forgotten most of it, and the memory of those situations might be worse than the actual situations, but he couldn't stop trembling now. He hated it, this feeling as if he was a helpless child again, subject to her whims and fancies, found to be lacking.

Lan Zhan squeezed his hand and the grounding feeling he received from the contact, brought him back to this horrible meeting.

"Madam Yu, Uncle Fengmian." Wei Ying bowed to them both.

If nothing else, these were the people who had given him a home, no matter what it was like. They gave him clothes and fed him, and no matter how much Madam Yu never let him forget that, he could acknowledge that much.

"Lan Zhan, these are my Foster parents," Wei Ying said, introducing them to his boyfriend. "This is Lan WangJi, my boyfriend."

Madam Yu takes in their joined hands and Lan Zhan's protective stance, and her mouth curls in distaste.

It gives Lan Zhan's mouth the freedom to say his next words.

"Actually, we are not merely boyfriends now. We are engaged to marry." He clarifies, with no small amount of satisfaction at her expression. It makes him smile.

"You should not date beneath your status, Young Master Lan. What will Senior Lan think, if he finds out that you're scraping the barrel of possible spouses?" Madam Yu retaliates with a strike from her fangs, ending with, "You should not associate with trash."

"Madam is quite correct, and that's why we shall take your leave." Lan Zhan replied, now seething at the audacity of her and her poisonous words.

Meanwhile, her face was a priceless mask of horror as he pushed past her and the quiet man next to her who hadn't bothered to say anything. Lan Zhan didn't care that he almost made her fall, pulling Wei Ying as far away from her as he could, and trying to calm his rage.

What a nasty, vindictive woman!

Lan Zhan wanted to go and shower, that awful greasy feeling coating his skin in the slimiest of ways, and it was only Wei Ying's nervous giggling that brought him out of his thoughts.

"Did you see her face, Sweetheart?" He was laughing so much, it was the balm of healing that Lan Zhan needed. "And may I remind you, you still have to ask me?"