161: Chapter 160 Exorbitant Dowry

A wedding banquet with thousands of attendees is a rare sight even in the countryside, let alone in the city. Normally, the hosts should be delighted by such a grand turnout, but today, both families were suffering from a massive headache. It wasn't that they minded the excessive cost, but rather that their preparations were severely inadequate. More than half of the guests were completely unknown to either family; they weren't relatives of the invitees, and no one knew where they had come from. Some were simply tourists who had come to Tianxing Garden to see the Shenlong Terrace. The hosts didn't even know how to address them when greeting. The He family had only invited about 1,200 people, so they had prepared for a scale of 2,000. Now, the number of people far exceeded their reception capacity. A hundred waiters plus the family members themselves were all hands on deck, but they were spinning in circles and still couldn't manage. Everything was in chaos. Many people didn't even have a place to sit, so they just sat on the ground in small groups all over the hills, making it look like a park picnic and significantly dampening the festive atmosphere.

Cao Xiao's heart ached as he looked at the sea of people. The crowd exceeding the limit by half meant he had to take out double the amount of ingredients from his space. Anything else would have been fine; even if he emptied all the ingredients in the space, he wouldn't feel a hint of heartache, as he could just collect more later. However, that exotic python meat was his own future staple food. Once it was consumed, he didn't even know if he could find a replacement on Earth. He was truly reluctant to take out even a little bit more, but many of the guests had come specifically for the python meat, so he had to provide it regardless of his reluctance. When he had cleared out the python nest, he had obtained a total of about 2,400 catties of clean meat. After his family's consumption during this period and the amount used for the Tianxing Auction, only about 1,900 catties remained in the space.

This morning, he had already taken out 400 catties. Based on the estimate of 2,000 people, with ten people per table, they would need 200 tables. At two taels of snake meat per person, each table would consume two catties. Now that the headcount had increased by half, he would have to take out at least another 400 catties, leaving him with only about 1,000 catties. He currently consumed ten catties of snake meat across three meals a day, so 1,000 catties would only last him three months. Moreover, as his appetite grew, those 1,000 catties might not even last two months. He couldn't eat it all alone either; his family members also liked this snake meat. Even if they only ate it occasionally, a dozen mouths eating their fill would consume over ten catties a meal, totaling at least 200 catties a month. After giving some to friends and relatives, what remained might not even last him a month. If the snake meat ran out, Cao Xiao would definitely become a second Liu Chang, so he was filled with resentment toward those strangers.

It was already 11:40, and the engagement ceremony was about to begin. Cao Xiao, accompanied by twelve girls in matching pure white long gauze dresses—including Liu Chang, Mi Fan, Li Lanshan, and Ren Huanhuan—carried the prepared betrothal gifts and rushed to the stage. Although the engagement banquet was a grand affair, the ceremony itself followed a Western style with a relatively simple process. First, the parents of both sides and important friends and relatives would give speeches on stage. Then, Cao Xiao would present the betrothal gifts to He Yueyou's family, and the He family would provide return gifts. After that, Cao Xiao and He Yueyou would exchange engagement rings in front of the guests. Once the Cao and He families thanked the guests on stage, the start of the feast would be announced, marking the end of the engagement ceremony process.

Before returning to the country, Cao Xiao didn't even know that engagement required betrothal gifts, as he had confused the concepts of betrothal gifts (pinli) and bridal dowry (caili). Yesterday, before leaving the house, he saw his parents mysteriously preparing gifts. Upon asking, he learned what was going on: it turned out the groom's family needed to present betrothal gifts to the bride's family during the engagement. The bridal dowry and betrothal gifts are different; the betrothal gift is a present given when the formal romantic relationship or engagement is established, while the bridal dowry is the ritual gift given before the final wedding. The betrothal gift is given by the man when proposing or engaging and is relatively lighter than the bridal dowry, which is the gift sent by the man to the woman's family when they get married.

According to local customs, betrothal gifts usually consist of houses, cars, jewelry, cash, ceremonial cakes, tobacco, alcohol, sugar, pastries, meat strips, and so on. Cao Xiao had looked at the gift list prepared by his parents: there were no cars or houses, the jewelry was what Cao Xiao had provided last time, and the cash gift was prepared at 990,000 yuan. Everything else was ready. This betrothal gift would be considered very generous for an ordinary family, but it was inappropriate for his situation. He Yueyou's family didn't lack cars or houses, the cash gift was just a gesture, and the rest was optional. After some consideration, Cao Xiao decided not to follow local customs. Since the He family was going all out, he had to bring out something truly shocking.

Cars and houses were meaningless, so there was no need to prepare them. Cash was a must, but he only prepared 9.99 million us dollars in cash. He could have prepared more in a short time, but the He family didn't lack money—they had spent no less than several hundred million on the engagement ceremony alone—so they wouldn't care about his cash gift. Nearly ten million us dollars was already a huge pile; any more and he'd need a truck to carry it. He didn't plan to prepare tobacco, alcohol, or sugar either. Instead, he replaced them with precious medicinal materials: two 500-year-old Changbai Mountain Wild Mountain Ginseng roots, two wild Purple Lingzhi mushrooms with cap diameters of twenty centimeters, and two pieces of white ambergris carved into dragon and phoenix ornaments.

Among the betrothal gifts, Cao Xiao prepared two sets of formal attire for He Yueyou to wear for the wedding. One was a Phoenix Crown and Official Robe (Fengguan Xiapei) styled after the Ming Dynasty empress's rank. This term refers to the attire of ancient noblewomen and titled ladies commissioned by the imperial court. In the Ming Dynasty, the imperial family had strict and detailed regulations for the Xiapei; the styles for titled ladies from the first to the ninth rank were all different, and one could not wear a rank above their status, or it would be considered a violation of protocol with severe consequences. However, modern society has no such constraints. As long as one has the strength to manufacture it, anyone can wear an empress-level phoenix crown and robe. The fabric used for the robe was a red light gauze woven from HS1 Alloy, and the surface patterns were plated with gold, platinum, and other metallic compound pigments, accented with Mutton-fat White Jade and chicken blood stone pendants. This robe would not decay even if preserved for a thousand years. The phoenix crown used a gold wire mesh as its base, adorned with a gold foil hollowed-out phoenix that looked ready to fly. The phoenix's silhouette was inlaid with hundreds of red diamonds ranging from ten points to one carat. The top of the crown was decorated with gold foil peonies and buds, interspersed with beads ground from glass species jade, great red robe chicken blood stone, rubies, sapphires, Mutton-fat White Jade, large multi-colored diamonds, and top-grade emeralds. The bead curtain over the face was also made of various gemstone beads. Cao Xiao had spared no expense for this set; when it was presented to the guests, they would surely be shocked and curse Cao Xiao as a profligate spendthrift for wasting such treasures.

The other set of formal attire was a wedding dress. However, the cost of Cao Xiao creating this dress was the waste of tens of thousands of colorless diamonds under one carat, hundreds of diamonds around one carat, and dozens of large diamonds around five carats. These diamonds were densely inlaid on the surface of the wedding dress, and the platinum tiara was also covered in large diamonds, the largest of which was over fifty carats. Compared to this dress, any diamond painting or diamond skull would pale in comparison. This wedding dress was absolutely the most expensive diamond product in the world, bar none. It was inlaid with a total of over 30,000 carats of flawless natural colorless diamonds, and the entire dress weighed eight kilograms. If it weren't for the concern that He Yueyou would complain about it being too heavy, Cao Xiao would have been insane enough to use even smaller diamonds to pave the surface so densely that not even a drop of water could pass through.

In addition to the cash, medicinal materials, and formal attire, Cao Xiao also prepared full sets of jewelry made from various gemstones he owned. These included eight sets of jewelry: glass species imperial green jade, great red robe chicken blood stone, ruby, sapphire, Mutton-fat White Jade, rainbow diamonds, top-grade emerald, and sky-blue blue amber. Furthermore, he added a seven-kilogram Frozen-field Yellow Stone ornament carved with a 'Dragon and Phoenix Dance' theme, making a total of nine sets.

Finally, there was a gold-rimmed envelope containing an asset transfer document. The content of this document was Cao Xiao's unconditional transfer of a large oil field he discovered in South Africa, with reserves of 230 million tons, to He Yueyou's father. Originally, Cao Xiao had planned to use that oil field as the wedding dowry, but since he couldn't find a betrothal gift of sufficient weight at the moment, he could only bring out the oil field first. Anyway, since the wedding date hadn't been set yet, he had enough time to prepare the bridal dowry.

Strictly speaking, among the betrothal gifts Cao Xiao prepared, only the medicinal materials and the asset transfer document were truly for the He family. The formal attire and jewelry were prepared for He Yueyou; when she married into the Cao family later, she would surely bring them with her. If he wasn't mistaken, the He family would also give Cao Xiao a ten percent stake in the Hongdu Group as a return gift for the betrothal. Therefore, only by giving that large oil field to the He family could Cao Xiao feel at peace.

...

"Distinguished guests, welcome to the engagement ceremony of Mr. Cao Xiao and Ms. He Yueyou! I am your host, Guo Yutao (Ning Feitong). First of all, on behalf of the couple-to-be and both sets of parents, we would like to express our warmest welcome and most sincere thanks to all our friends and relatives for coming! An auspicious day for a good match, a house full of joy to warm the heart. Today is..."

As soon as it struck twelve o'clock, beautiful and festive music sounded from all directions. Beside a flat lawn of several acres outside the villa courtyard, on a two-meter-high flower-covered stage of nearly a hundred square meters, the two hosts in formal attire took the stage at the right time and began to preside over the ceremony.

After the hosts' opening remarks, both sets of parents went on stage together to give speeches. Without a prepared script, Cao Xiao's parents were a bit agitated; the speech they had been memorizing under the stage for half the day was useless. They finished after saying a few simple words. When it was Mother He and Father He's turn to speak, the crowd below erupted in cheers. However, to be mindful of Cao Xiao's parents' feelings, they didn't say much. Today's engagement ceremony was merely a communication platform Mother He and Father He had intentionally built. The focus was off-stage; all the guests who should have come were there. The purpose was to inform everyone that Cao Xiao would henceforth be the new son-in-law of the Hongdu Group and to let people witness Hongdu's strength. Once they communicated further in private, their goal would be achieved. Everything that needed to be shown had been shown. The specific ceremony process was not that important.

When it was Cao Xiao and He Yueyou's turn to go on stage for their speeches, there was thunderous applause from all over the hills. However, it was unlikely that even two out of ten guests below knew Cao Xiao and He Yueyou. The reason the applause was so loud was simply out of respect for the hosts; it held no other meaning. Cao Xiao didn't care about this; he didn't know many people at the scene anyway. He and He Yueyou didn't need the blessings of strangers, and he didn't view the engagement ceremony as particularly important. All he cared about was that He Yueyou would be his fiancée from this moment on, so most of his attention was focused on her. Compared to Cao Xiao's indifference, He Yueyou seemed a bit nervous. Cao Xiao ignored all protocol and gently took her hand, comforting her with his eyes.

After their speeches, the next step was the presentation of betrothal gifts by the groom's side and the return gifts by the bride's side. After the host announced it, Liu Chang and the other twelve girls went on stage carrying the betrothal gifts on trays covered with red silk. But just then, a burst of rapid gunfire came from the direction of the Tianxing Garden gate. Hearing the unique sound of the Vulcan Cannon, Cao Xiao looked toward the gate, his expression instantly turning extremely dark. With a thought, the scene at the gate appeared in his mind.

The gunfire lasted for only a dozen seconds before subsiding. Cao Xiao's expression returned to normal. After casting a deep look toward the gate, a smile reappeared on his face. He was secretly relieved that he had placed a weapon of mass destruction at the entrance; otherwise, the engagement ceremony would have been thrown into chaos. There was no doubt that the people from the Linghu Family had just arrived. It wasn't just Linghu Yashu; there were also three middle-aged men, an old man, and over a dozen bodyguards. After being blocked by the guards, these people tried to force their way in, believing the guards wouldn't dare to fire. Moreover, they had brought three martial artists this time—two Obvious Power and one Anjin—which gave them the confidence to seek their own deaths.

Before they could even get close to the gate, the bodyguards opened fire without hesitation, catching them completely off guard. Three of the opponent's bodyguards were torn into several pieces by the Vulcan Cannon, while the others were accurately hit by Duan Hong and his team. However, they were all hit in the limbs to keep them alive while stripping them of their ability to resist. Even the two Mingjin Martial Artists and the four Linghu Family members were no exception, all taking several bullets. The old man looked frail and non-threatening, so Duan Hong and the others didn't shoot him.

The only survivor was the Anjin Martial Artist. That person had leaped behind a car the moment the guns fired. Some Anjin Martial Artists have a vague sense of 'qi' and can detect danger in advance to react quickly. Ordinary handguns pose very little threat to Anjin Martial Artists, and even against automatic weapons, they have the ability to quickly escape the line of fire before the trigger is pulled. However, while he thought he had escaped, Cao Xiao had no intention of letting him go and threw several hand grenades near him without hesitation. The opponent seemed to sense the danger and quickly leaped upward, but when he was over two meters high, the grenades exploded. His legs were blown into a bloody mess, and he was knocked unconscious by the blast wave, slamming heavily onto the ground.

After Duan Hong and the others eliminated the threat, they quickly began to clean up the battlefield. The bodies were dragged away, and the injured were all taken to a hidden location to be detained, waiting for Cao Xiao to deal with them. The damaged cars were also towed away and hidden, and the bloodstains on the ground were washed clean. Then, a layer of flower petals was spread on the ground, making it completely impossible to tell that a bloody battle had just occurred here.