The official wedding ceremony was set at sunset.
Li family’s mountainside estate, south of the capital, had the city’s most beautiful sunsets.
Although the evening banquet was the main event, Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi were busy from early morning.
The top-tier wedding team even required strict adherence to every detail, from bathing and brushing teeth to shaving before makeup and hairstyling!
All in the name of purification and welcoming a new life.
Having experienced it once before, Ying Zhiyu calmly complied.
When his hair and makeup were finished, perfectly dressed, Li Xi emerged from another door.
From Li Xi’s gaze, Ying Zhiyu caught a hint of hidden satisfaction.
Half sighing, half amused, he said, “I put on three face masks this morning—my skin’s softer than a peeled egg now.”
As if taking it as an invitation, Li Xi raised his thumb and brushed Ying Zhiyu’s cheek.
Ying Zhiyu froze.
Li Xi seemed to realize what he’d done.
He pulled his hand back and cleared his throat. “Make it more intimate—there’s full coverage filming.”
In the previous life, there had been filming too, yet Li Xi had never pinched his face.
Ying Zhiyu grumbled silently but dared not voice it. He simply nodded and replied earnestly, “Okay.”
Later, when the PR team requested some couple photos for future use, he casually looped an arm around Li Xi’s waist.
Li Xi stiffened.
Ying Zhiyu, holding him close, tilted his head with a smile. “More intimate, Mr. Li.”
Li Xi: “…”
Not to be outdone, he wrapped his arms around the back of Ying Zhiyu’s head.
From a distance, it looked like they were kissing.
Fifteen minutes later, under the watchful and resentful eyes of the hair and makeup team, Ying Zhiyu had to have his tousled hair urgently fixed.
At exactly 2:00 p.m., wedding guests were allowed to enter.
For this Li family wedding, the top priority was the security system.
For a week leading up to the event, the entire estate strictly controlled access to strangers. Anti-drone systems were activated even before the venue setup.
All attendees had to pass facial recognition to enter and sign strict confidentiality agreements.
Inside and outside the estate, over a thousand bodyguards patrolled, with a signal-blocking system covering the entire area.
At 5:17 p.m., the ceremony began.
Bathed in the golden glow of the setting sun, Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi exchanged their dazzling wedding rings.
Just looking at their physiques, they were an extremely well-matched pair.
Ying Zhiyu stood exactly 188.8 cm, Li Xi 185.5 cm—perfectly balanced, even down to the decimal.
Sitting on the edge of the seventh row, Xu Su Xiao’s expression was complex.
Two months ago, this tall, handsome young Alpha could only bow slightly behind his mentor on stage, with no right to speak, respectfully offering toasts.
Two months later, he couldn’t even sit in the front or middle of the guest seats, and Xu Su Xiao could finally see the proud, confident expression on his face.
Of course, he tried to take the high road.
Throughout the ceremony, Ying Zhiyu conducted himself with complete composure.
Even during the ring exchange, when a kiss landed on Li Xi’s cheek, he remained serene.
This wedding was merely a stepping stone for Li Xi to secure a foothold on the LI Group board.
Although the sedative project had sparked huge public controversy, LI’s stock simultaneously soared to an unprecedented high.
Li Xi’s status as heir was unquestioned; his next move would be full control of LI.
A powerless Alpha partner and a worry-free marriage would provide the final boost to the board.
As the supporting role to Li Xi’s performance, Ying Zhiyu naturally remained calm and detached.
By 6:18 p.m., the wedding banquet began.
With the Li family’s prestige, Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi didn’t need to toast table by table.
The couple simply raised their glasses at the center of the stage. All guests stood and lifted their own glasses toward them.
Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi drank their cross-cup wine, and simultaneously, the guests emptied their glasses.
After stepping down from the stage, Ying Zhiyu and Li Xi changed out of their white ceremony attire into matching black evening formalwear.
Around each of them, seven or eight staff members attended to various tasks—touching up makeup and hair, fastening buttons, adjusting belts, pairing bowties, pins, cufflinks, watches, and other accessories.
Ying Zhiyu stretched and opened his arms, cooperating with the attendants.
From dozens of feet away, Li Xi cast a glance at him, then lowered his eyes to check Ying Zhiyu’s left wrist.
Since both were men, there was no traditional bride-receiving or groom-receiving segment, and their wedding attire was relatively simple: one outfit for the welcome, one for the ceremony, and one for the evening banquet.
Three outfits matched with three sets of accessories. Only one pair of wristwatches for the evening wear had been personally reviewed and approved by Li Xi amidst his busy schedule.
Once the inner shirt was changed, Ying Zhiyu’s lean, prominent wrist was adorned with a Patek Philippe watch with a meteorite dial.
The dial material came from a slice of lunar meteorite, symbolizing eternity.
Li Xi’s gaze lingered on the Alpha’s wrist. Feeling his attention, Ying Zhiyu looked up. In the next moment, Li Xi turned away.
Ying Zhiyu blinked, watching the visibly flustered Third Prince glance elsewhere.
With their evening attire perfectly in place, there was no need to toast each table individually, but they still had to make the rounds at the VIP tables.
When the sommelier, wearing pristine white gloves, poured champagne for Ying Zhiyu, he suddenly tapped Li Xi’s wrist with his own.
Li Xi looked up.
Ying Zhiyu grinned teasingly. “Is this tonight’s surprise from you, Mr. Li? This isn’t the watch we tried on before, right?”
Li Xi paused, then lowered his eyes. “It hadn’t arrived yet.”
The Patek Philippe custom lunar meteorite watches—one on each of their wrists—lined up so that the patterns of the meteorite formed a continuous, connected design.
They were slices from the same meteorite—unique, matching couple watches.
The leftover meteorite material was also carefully crafted into a pair of matching cufflinks, now quietly adorning their black evening jacket cuffs.
The material was rare, the craftsmanship complex, and the custom work rushed.
When they had tried on the evening outfit accessories days ago, they hadn’t been delivered yet. Now, as a surprise, it was clear Li Xi had intentionally kept it from the other newlywed.
Li Xi knew Ying Zhiyu liked watches.
Looking at the watch, Ying Zhiyu’s thoughts drifted to the previous life.
At their wedding back then, Li Xi had been too busy to manage the preparations, and Ying Zhiyu, unfamiliar with high-society rules, had no say. There had been no matching watches or cufflinks.
Yet he had actually received a similar meteorite watch that first time—on their tenth wedding anniversary, delivered by Li Xi’s bodyguard, Panda, in a gift box containing a watch and a ring with a meteorite slice.
Back then, working at the National Institute of Biological Sciences, he hadn’t worn such showy items in public.
He had assumed the watch and ring were simply displays of wealth and status, with a touch of rarity.
But tonight, at this moment, Ying Zhiyu realized that the watch—and perhaps even the ring—had always been designed as one half of a matching couple set.
He had never worn them before, so he didn’t know that the other half had remained with his spouse all along.
“I really like this surprise,” Ying Zhiyu said, eyes curved into a smile.
The Alpha never held back his joy.
Yet Ying Zhiyu’s naturally sharp features and defined contours gave him an aura of distance when not smiling.
Leaning forward, he pressed a light kiss to Li Xi’s cheek without warning.
The makeup on his lips left a trace; he laughed, then wiped it off Li Xi’s face with his hand.
Li Xi froze, seemingly stunned for a heartbeat.
He held his breath, body rigid.
This wasn’t Ying Zhiyu’s first kiss—he had kissed Li Xi at the afternoon ceremony as well—but the sensation now was entirely different.
Li Xi paused for half a second, about to say something, when the Alpha pulled back.
“My tolerance for alcohol isn’t great. Mr. Li, you’ll have to cover for me later.”
Li Xi: “…”
Well, this was something.
A physically strong Alpha expecting the newlywed Omega to look out for him during the toasts!