After being ridiculed by Blooming Pear Tree, Su Han sighed deeply.

Years ago, he had been sincerely in love with Xiaoguang. He liked this lovely and kind girl and chased after her.

With the help of her big brother Blooming Pear Tree, he and Xiaoguang quickly start a relations.h.i.+p.

She was a nice girl. She never made excessive demands or pestered him to accompany her. Although it was a net-love, they still felt happy and contented.

Su Han did not understand why their relations.h.i.+p had suddenly changed when they decided to tell their parents that they wanted to get married.

In the beginning, his parents refused to accept Xiaoguang because they could not trust a girl that he met on the Internet.

They said, "How much do you know about a girl you meet online? There are so many highly skillful swindlers on the Internet. You're always so honest and pure-minded. You'll get cheated by them without knowing anything about it."

He retorted, "She's not a swindler. I've met her family!"

After that, his parents still refused to accept Xiaoguang since she lived far away from them.

They said, "You know what. People have different social customs and habits everywhere. She lives so far away from us, and we know nothing about the people in her place. You can fall in love with whoever you want, Xiaohan. But you have to be careful about your marriage decision. You'd better marry a girl who comes from a similar background and shares similar thoughts with you!

"This is a long-distance relations.h.i.+p, and R City and S City are far apart. If you marry her, where will you settle down? What about your and your children's household registration records?"

Upon hearing them nagging, he could not help but think, "No wonder all my cousins obeyed their parents and married girls in this city in the end. Besides, there are indeed many practical problems."

He did not talk back. Instead, he remained silent to express his dissatisfaction.

He was well aware that his parents were very conservative and stubborn. They always used pressure tactics to make him do whatever they said. They repeatedly asked him to break up with Xiaoguang and found another girlfriend who was more suitable for him.

His mother held his hand and said, "My dear son, you're too young to understand these things. You think that we're stubborn, but we're much more experienced than you. We know more about people than you do. That girl is not suitable for you."

He retorted, "I have feelings for her. I like her and want to marry her. We've maintained our relations.h.i.+p for such a long time. Doesn't it mean that we're suitable for each other?

"More importantly...

"You haven't even met Xiaoguang, mom. How can you be so sure that we're not suitable for each other?" That was the first time in his life that he had questioned the mother directly

His mother sighed, "You're carried away by your feelings and just want to be together with her now. But you have to understand that marriage is not all about love. Once your feelings faded, you'll fall out a lot."

He was puzzled and asked, "Why will we fall out a lot?"

He did not believe that as he considered Xiaoguang a very considerate girl.

To his surprise, his mother said affirmatively, "Believe it or not. I'll avoid her for some time, you just wait and see whether you'll fall out a lot."

Su Han did not grant his mother's request as he wanted to keep his promise to Xiaoguang. He promised her that he would persuade his parents to meet her. As such, he begged his mother to give them a chance.

His mother agreed to meet Zheng Xiaoguang in the end.

Beyond his expectations, when Zheng Xiaoguang was ready to visit them before the spring festival, his mother suddenly said that it was inconvenient for the girl to travel alone for such a long time and refused to meet her. After that, it took him another four months to make his mother agree to meet Xiaoguang.

Strangely enough, when Zheng Xiaoguang was going to S City, Su Han's aunt invited his parents to go on a trip together with her family, and they left just one day before Zheng Xiaoguang's arrival.

When Zheng Xiaoguang met him, she disappointingly asked him, "Are your parents avoiding me?"

In fact, Su Han had similar doubts. After sending Zheng Xiaoguang away, his parents came back. He directly asked his mother whether she was deliberately avoiding his girlfriend. His mother denied it and said he was oversensitive.

"Then when will you meet her?" asked Su Han.

"Just wait a little longer," his mother said. "I'll tell you when I confirm the date. Don't let the girl take another fruitless trip."

Upon hearing that, Su Han decided to give his mother some more time. To his surprise, Xiaoguang quarreled with him not long after the fruitless trip.

That was the first time that Xiaoguang had gotten angry with him. She said, "Your parents just don't want to meet me, do they?"

Su Had was suspicious about that too, but he refused to believe that his parents had deliberately lied to him.

"Xiaoguang, my parents really don't have the time to meet you recently. I can't force them to meet you." He watched her weeping sadly on the screen and felt helpless.

"What if your parents keep avoiding me forever?" asked Zheng Xiaoguang.

Upon hearing that, he thought, "What? Is she asking me to make a choice between her and my parents? I have to be filial to my parents. How can she push me like that and make such an excessive demand?"

As such, their bickering quickly escalated into a cold war, and both of them refused to back down. That was the first time that Su Han had found out that Zheng Xiaoguang was not always an amiable and considerate girl. He wondered, "Does she change? Or, just as my mom said, I don't know her well enough."

Gradually, he began to avoid Xiaoguang. He dared not talk to her or log onto Flying Deity again. He just did not want her to push him so hard. He did not understand why his life suddenly became so stressful.

Afterwards, he realized that without Xiaoguang, he could live a more relaxed life. He decided to follow the advice of his parents and gave up on his relations.h.i.+p with Xiaoguang.

"How about we break up? I can't stay by your side every day, and my parents can't accept you. You'd better find a boyfriend in the city where you live," said Su Han.

Zheng Xiaoguang did not want to give up and kept calling him. He dared not receive her calls. She texted him. "Tell me the real reason."

He felt helpless. What he said was the real reason, but Zheng Xiaoguang just refused to believe it. In the end, he had no choice but to tell her what his parents had said to him. "My parents said that I can fall in love with whoever I want, but I have to be careful about my marriage decision."

After a long time, Zheng Xiaoguang texted him. "I see. Take care of yourself."

This was the last conversation between them. When he confirmed that Zheng Xiaoguang had given up, he felt relieved.

He said to his mother, "Mom, I was wrong. You're right about her. We did fall out a lot recently."

He felt lucky. He thought that he ended this relations.h.i.+p in time and saved himself from having lots of trouble after getting married to Zheng Xiaoguang.

He continued to go to work every day, and his family began to arrange blind dates for him. He never refused to go on such a blind date, as he knew that he had to get married.

He met quite a lot of good girls on the blind dates, who were well-educated and had good jobs and good backgrounds. Nevertheless, as none of these girls shared a common interest with him, he really did not know what to talk about when dating them.

He was never discouraged by this fact, as he firmly believed that one day he would find a girl who was suitable for him, get married and settle down like his cousin.

Not long after breaking up with Zheng Xiaoguang, he heard that she was injured and lying in a hospital. He planned to pay her a visit as a friend to show his concern.

Upon knowing his plan, his mother stopped him. "Why bother paying her a visit now? You've broken up with her. If you go to see her, she'll think that she still has a chance with you and that you two can be back together. It's impossible. Why bother letting her down again? "

Su Han thought that his mother had a point and thus did not go to visit Xiaoguang. To his surprise, Blooming Pear Tree suddenly came to S City to find him.

He knew that Blooming Pear Tree treated Zheng Xiaoguang as a real sister. In Flying Deity, she had risked her life to rescue Blooming Pear Tree for many times when he got a red ID and hunted down by other players in the PVP regions. Back then, Zheng Xiaoguang had been a low-level doctor. Despite that, she never minded ruining her own equipment to save her big brother.

Given this adversity-tested friends.h.i.+p between them, Su Han understood why Blooming Pear Tree got so angry with him when meeting up with him in S City.

Now that a few years had pa.s.sed, Su Han still believed that he did nothing wrong. He thought, "When I fell in love with Zheng Xiaoguang, I treated her sincerely and asked Blooming Pear Tree for help. When I found out that we were not suitable for each other, I immediately broke up with her. I never two-timed her. By ending our relations.h.i.+p in time, I gave her the chance to start all over again as soon as possible. Is there anything wrong about it?

"Over the past year, I've sincerely hoped that she'll find a guy who's suitable for her and live a happy life. Why does Blooming Pear Tree still hates me so much?

"Besides, why does Blooming Pear Tree allow Zheng Xiaoguang to start a relations.h.i.+p with Bluegreen-Clad?

"Bluegreen-Clad told me that he would never break up with his girlfriend because his parents disapproved of her when we were playing the additional instance together. But I don't think that it'll be easy for him to convince his parents that it's alright to maintain such a relations.h.i.+p. As this is a net-love and a long-distance relations.h.i.+p, they themselves will fall out frequently. Why does Blooming Pear Tree let Zheng Xiaoguang start such a relations.h.i.+p, which is doomed to fail, again?"

With this in mind, Su Han could not help but add, "I really hope that she'll be happy. I don't want her to repeat her past mistakes. If you want to take good care of her, you shouldn't..."

Blooming Pear Tree impatiently interjected, "I've told you that you'd better not intervene in her future life. She doesn't need your care."

"How can I not care about her?" Su Han frowned and said. "If Bluegreen-Clad knows about our past relations.h.i.+p, will he mind it?

"Even if he doesn't mind it, what everyone else will think when they know about this?

He thought that Blooming Pear Tree had similar worries, but to his surprise, Blooming Pear Tree just looked at him and said, "As long as you don't tell them, they won't know about it and everything will be alright."

"But..." He still wanted to say something but got stuck for words.

Blooming Pear Tree interrupted him, "Su Han, as you can't make her happy, you should wish her happiness like a man."