In the hotel room, they prepared for their wedding ceremony. The freshly set matrimonial bed was red and gold, its blanket bore the pattern of a dragon and a phoenix, the red dates and longans scattered beneath the quilt promising them a newborn baby soon. Before the wedding began the door game would take place where the bridesmaids would ferociously insult him to test his determination to marry her. He was very determined. That was his job as a son. His birth had cost his mother, who had been wishing for a daughter since the birth of his elder brother, her job. But he wasn’t a daughter. So his mother had let him wear a pink floral dress and a velvet flower in his hair ever since he was a kid, and that continued clear into his thirties, as he’d still pick his outfits in both the men’s and the women’s sections, making his friends try the women’s clothing on for him. He was too shy to wear them in public. In the hotel room he took off his all-weather bomber jacket and long sleeve t-shirts, revealing his lingerie bodysuit. Then he put on the groom’s suit in front of her, covering the fine delicate lace on his bodysuit.

Her mother was the same as his. Her mother had been endeavoring to make her a real woman, though she scarcely looked like one. Except for the days when all the girls were required to wear red skirts at school, she’d wear black hoodies, black boxers, and black tank tops. She’d cut her hair so short that when she used women’s restrooms in Shanghai, she was driven out by the other women. In the hotel room she took off her black pocket polo, revealing her biceps so rarely seen among the local girls who were taught to be tender and slim. The tattoos on her biceps shone in the hotel light as she remembered her mother saying, If you have short hair, you can grow your hair; if you don’t wear a dress, you can buy a dress; if you don’t like men, you can like a man; Everything could be learned and changed.

Three months ago, they met on a website where people like them looked for a spouse of the opposite sex. I won’t ever touch you, he promised in his friend request. I won’t ever stop you from going out with your boyfriend, she replied. Shortly after they signed their contract they went to see each other’s parents, set out the budget, chose the wedding venue, and scheduled a cake tasting. To prove his normality his parents had invited all their friends, colleagues, and relatives, though she didn’t invite anyone. She paid for fake guests to act like her friends because she didn’t want to be seen in a white lace dress. Her girlfriend once suggested traditional Chinese wedding gowns since the bride and the groom’s attires were both red robes and nobody could tell the difference except that the bride would cover her face with a red veil, and she said, it would kill me to wear a red veil. What’s even worse than covering my face with a red veil? I am a daughter, a girlfriend, a wife under that veil. Who am I?

She had been with her girlfriend ever since junior high. Before they started dating she still had long hair. Every several months they’d have their hair cut together but still kept the same hairstyle as each other. They’d wear their hair in ponytails, and sometimes they’d braid their hair with bronze hair clips, then wrap it around the holder, making a loose, messy braided bun. Her hair was later cut short by herself because her girlfriend said, I can’t stand your softness merely as a friend, if only you could become a boy. After she got a crew cut they’d show off their closeness by some little nuanced signs, though that closeness was too commonly seen among girls then. They’d change their hair color to the same chestnut regardless of the school regulations then dye it back to black after the detention, or touch each other’s arms when practicing the radio calisthenics, the once-a-day fitness broadcast prevailing in the country then. The only chance of getting out was on Sundays when they’d go to the skateboard park, as they’d have classes until midnight at their boarding school, and she’d sit there watching her girlfriend sliding and swirling in bizarre circles, thinking, That girl will be my wife. Under the pomelo tree nearby, they kissed for the first time, their uniforms burning red, the hearts they drew on their uniforms like everlasting wedding vows.

When the setting sun penetrated the hotel windows, the red sheets glowed like flowing blood. He apologized that all the red envelopes received at the ceremony would go to his parents’ pockets, not hers. They have attended so many weddings, and have sent out so many red envelopes, that they needed my wedding to win the lost money back. She shrugged and said, I don’t care. He laughed, sitting down on the carpet covered by the thin, tender rose petals. Then he said, Do you think I’m like a prostitute making money for them? He laughed so loud that she wasn’t sure if that was laughter or a cough. She squatted down, her hands close to his. She studied his face when his coughing turned into choking. His tears sparkled like tiny shining bulbs, his shoulders quivering. She reached out for his hand. In the waning sunlight she picked him up, and walked out of the hotel room to the wedding hall, their hands held tightly. They looked so merry, so perfect that nobody, not any of the guests at the ceremony, not his parents or hers, not even themselves, would doubt that they were a loving couple, a match made in heaven.