The corner of Liuxian's mouth did not move. His eyes, however, held something that a very attentive person might have identified as amusement, buried neatly beneath several layers of composure.
He looked at Guiying for a long moment without speaking.
Then he said, "You are remarkably shameless for someone who married a stranger forty minutes ago."
"I prefer the word efficient," Guiying said.
Liuxian looked at him for another moment. Then he turned and walked toward the exit, his hands still loosely held in Guiying's grip, neither pulling away nor acknowledging the contact.
"Come," he said simply. "My driver is outside."
Guiying followed, and allowed himself, very quietly, the smallest measure of relief.
He did not know yet what kind of man Liu Liuxian was beneath the cold exterior and the composed silences. He did not know if this gamble would pay off the way he needed it to. But he had walked into this building with nothing but desperation and his mother's face, and he was walking out of it with a husband, a powerful name behind him, and at least one person between himself and Shen Zihao.
For today, that was enough.
When they stepped outside, a sleek black car was already waiting at the curb. A driver stood beside it, straightening immediately when he caught sight of Liuxian.
Liuxian walked to the rear passenger door and opened it without hesitation. Then he raised his free hand and placed it at the top of the door frame, steady and unhurried, a quiet shield between Guiying's head and the edge of the car.
Guiying stopped walking.
He stood on the pavement and stared at the open door, at the hand braced above it, at the perfectly ordinary gesture that was being offered to him as though it cost nothing at all, because to this man it apparently did not.
Nobody had ever opened a door for him.
He was aware, distantly, that he had been standing still for slightly too long. He was also aware that he could not quite make his legs cooperate.
Liuxian looked at him. The composed expression did not shift, but something at the corner of his mouth curved, just barely, like the beginning of something that had not quite decided to become a smile yet.
"Is this new for you?" he asked.
Guiying opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
"It is only right that a husband opens the door for his wife," Liuxian said, his tone perfectly even. "Chivalry runs in my family, unfortunately."
Guiying stared at him.
He had walked into a civil affairs bureau that morning with nothing but desperation and a singular objective. He had talked a complete stranger into marrying him using his face and his nerve and a promise of one child. He had held himself together through a scene that would have undone most people without so much as blinking.
And he was being undone by an open car door.
He got into the car.
Liuxian closed the door behind him with the same unhurried ease and walked around to the other side without another word, as though the entire exchange had been completely unremarkable.
Guiying sat in the cool interior of the car and looked straight ahead and thought, with great seriousness, that this man was going to be a problem.
The car pulled smoothly away from the curb. The city moved past the windows in quiet afternoon light.
Liuxian glanced at him. "Do you need to return home to collect more of your things?"
Guiying shook his head immediately, the motion sharp and instinctive.
"I cannot go back," he said. "Not today. Not ever, if I can help it." He paused, then turned to look at Liuxian with an expression that was entirely serious. "They announced my arranged marriage this morning. If I step back into that house right now they will lock the doors and I will not come back out."
Liuxian regarded him for a moment.
"So you have nothing but what is in that bag," he said.
"Yes."
"And your solution to this is?"
Guiying folded his hands neatly in his lap. "You will buy me more clothes, won't you, dear Hubby?"
Liuxian looked at him. Then he looked forward again and nodded once, with the air of a man accepting a situation he had brought entirely upon himself.
"Sure," he said. "You married a billionaire after all." His eyes moved over Guiying briefly, taking in the lean frame, the sharp angles, the clothes that sat slightly too loose on his shoulders. "Although we should probably get you some weight gain supplements while we are at it."
Guiying blinked, taken aback.
"You are twenty three years old and you are scrawny," Liuxian continued, with complete calm. "It is concerning.."
He paused, then tilted his head slightly toward Guiying. "And I cannot believe I married a kid. What was I thinking?"
Another pause, shorter this time. "I knew you were young but damn. You are into older men?"
Guiying turned to look at him. "What is that supposed to mean? Just how old are you, exactly?"
"Thirty three."
Guiying's eyes went wide.
He looked at Liuxian's face with the sudden sharp attention of someone performing a rapid and belated reassessment. The clean features, the composed bearing, the air of someone who had long since stopped being impressed by anything. He had assumed early thirties at most. He had not assumed this.
"Damn," he said. "I married an old man."
Liuxian's expression shifted, subtle but present, the particular look of a man who had not expected that specific response and was not entirely pleased by it.
"Old?" he repeated.
"Mm."
"I am not old," Liuxian said, with a precision that suggested this point mattered to him considerably. "I am thirty three. That is not old."
Guiying said nothing, which communicated his opinion more effectively than words would have.
"I am handsome," Liuxian said. "I am rich. I have an excellent physique." He paused. "I am not old."
Guiying looked out the window.
"Sure, Hubby," he said pleasantly.
Liuxian looked at the side of his face for a long moment.
The driver kept his eyes firmly on the road and said absolutely nothing.