Elena sprang to her feet in shock.
"Married? Married to an in—marriage license? With who? Ethan Jiang or Adrian Jiang?"
She fired off half a dozen questions in one breath.
To all of them, Elena only answered the last.
"With Ethan Jiang."
The moment his name fell from her lips, Elena was certain her best friend was about to shriek with excitement.
Had they not been out in public, she wouldn't have doubted for a second that Annie would've howled in sheer ecstasy.
"R-Really?" Annie stared at her, eyes wide in disbelief.
"That fast?"
"You have a picture? Let me see!"
She darted to Elena's side like a rabbit, squeezed into the seat beside her, and stared unblinkingly at Elena's phone, eyes practically screaming, Show me!
Elena followed her gaze to her phone, resting face-down on the table—and only then remembered.
The marriage certificates… both of them… were with Ethan.
Aside from that half-hour after they'd registered, when she'd held the red booklets all the way back to the Jiang family estate, Ethan had taken them and never returned them.
She didn't even have a single photo of them on her phone.
Elena turned her head back toward Annie, who was still staring at her expectantly. "... I forgot to take a picture."
Annie shot her a withering glare.
A look that said she'd very much like to knock some sense into her with a fist to the forehead.
"Your first marriage certificate—no, your only marriage certificate in this lifetime—and you didn't even take a photo for memory's sake…"
Mid-sentence, she caught herself and quickly corrected, "Your one and only marriage certificate!"
Elena: "…"
Annie wasn't just eager to see the photo—she was dying to see whether the ever-distant, cold-hearted heir to the Jiang empire had kept his usual frosty expression even while registering a marriage.
But the lack of photo evidence wasn't the end of it.
In fact, Annie suddenly thought of something far more serious.
Or rather—alarming.
"Elena, I heard Ethan left early this morning for a business trip to Lín City, didn't he?"
She recalled overhearing her brother Winston on the phone earlier that day, mentioning something about the E.R. Group's headquarters project.
Elena nodded without much thought. "Yeah. Why?"
Annie's expression turned grim. "When did you and Mr. Jiang get married?"
"Just yesterday, on my birthday," Elena replied.
Annie's brows drew together instantly.
Especially looking at her friend's clueless, utterly unconcerned expression, she nearly exploded with frustration.
"Elena, you two just got married yesterday, and he left for a business trip today?"
Elena still didn't understand why Annie was making such a fuss. She blinked and asked in confusion, "Um… is that a problem?"
Annie took a long, deep breath.
Of course, it was a problem!
A huge one!
She knew Elena wasn't exactly close to Ethan Jiang, but… not this unfamiliar, surely?
She remembered asking Elena in their chat earlier where she was spending her day.
Elena had replied: at the apartment.
So what was this?
Just married and already living apart?
That marriage certificate was nothing more than a symbolic piece of paper?
If they were already sleeping in separate beds right after getting married, how were they supposed to build any sort of emotional intimacy?
She knew Elena was somewhat intimidated by Ethan, but fear aside—he was her husband now. They needed some kind of… physical contact at some point, didn't they?
Otherwise, how could a relationship grow?
How could Elena hold on to this long-term golden ticket?
Watching her friend sit there utterly unaware of the crisis at hand, Annie could no longer sit still.
She jumped to her feet. "Alright. Elena, I'm not going shopping with you anymore. I'm going back to preparing your real birthday gift. A married woman's birthday gift!"
"Wait for me! I'll message you soon!"
Before the words had fully left her lips, she dashed out of the café.
So fast that Elena didn't even have time to grab her arm.
Watching her vanish out the door in a flurry, Elena couldn't help but laugh and quickly typed a message on WeChat:
[Elena]: Miss Gu, weren't you supposed to help me celebrate tonight? I came out here just for that!
The reply came almost instantly.
Even before her message had finished sending, the chat already showed "Typing…"
[Little Sprout]: Babe, I'm preparing an even more important birthday gift now—trust me, you're going to love it! You'll be thanking me for it later!
[Little Sprout]: Just wait for my word, darling~ I promise you won't be disappointed!
Elena: "…"