The bride herself had given her the leeway to design her dress according to her preference. While the Black Nightingale was a popular designer, this was actually the first time Li Meili was designing a dress for a wedding event.

  This should give her brand name a popularity boost since the Gu family was a prominent family from the capital. Many people would want to see the sole heiress of the Gu family marrying He Lianchen. It was the perfect opportunity for Li Meili and her newest collection to get free publicity.

  Still, such a thing comes for a price and it wasn't monetary. The time she exerted to finish the details of each dress was utterly consuming and she barely had time to relax and see her favorite little buns.

  Li Meili sighed inwardly. They were the only joy she could indulge in once in a while whenever she wasn't busy at work. As for her own family, they better not cause her anymore trouble. She was holding out just fine doing what she loved and didn't care much about their family business since her brother could manage their chains of restaurants on his own.

  She took her phone from her table and checked the latest photos of the little buns that Tang Moyu had sent to their group chat earlier, a smile spreading on her lips as she saw Little Star's hair pinned up in different hairstyles.

  [She's really cute in those twin braids.]

  She sent the group a smiley sticker.

  [Hn, I wonder where she got that from.] Lin Qianrou followed with a heart emoji.

  Li Meili grinned, her fingers swiftly typing over her screen.

  [Qian, that's pretty obvious. Little Star got it from her Auntie Mei. Moyu had no choice but to see my face everyday when she was pregnant with her twins. That beauty definitely came from me!] She bragged.

  Anyway, it was pretty obvious to her that Little Star took after her mother. It's a shame that they still didn't know who fathered the twins, but perhaps it's for the better. Li Meili knew what could happen if some random man came suddenly to claim his paternity rights on the little buns. Tang Moyu would surely face a custody battle in court to protect her twins.

  Speaking of Tang Moyu, Li Meili hadn't forgotten her suggestion to give her brother a call. Did her brother really think he would be able to convince her to return home by seeking the empress's help?

  Well, maybe he thought he could, but it was definitely out of question because she's already a grown up woman who didn't want to be dictated by her own family on how she lived her life. She's been happy and content with what she was doing so far and wasn't planning to drop it just because her family wanted to marry her off to some stranger.

  "Meili." She heard her brother's cool, baritone voice that could make any woman swoon upon hearing it.

  "So I heard from Moyu you want something from me. You could have just left me a message you know. What is it about now?" She asked, not beating around the bush to save each other's time.

  "Father wants you to come home in two weeks. He wants to introduce someone to you."

  "Okay…" Li Meili had a bad feeling about this.

  "He's a VP at one of the popular firms in Shanghai." Li Yuanyi continued.

  "Uh-huh, and?" Li Meili slouched on her seat and twirled her long hair with her forefinger, already knew what this talk was all about.

  "Oh." Li Yuanyi sighed and she could hear him smacking his forehead in frustration. Her brother had this weird habit whenever he was under pressure about something he didn't want to get involved with.

  "He's a bachelor. Same age as you. A pretty decent man with a good background according to Father."

  There he said it. Although Li Yuanyi already knew how his little sister felt about this type of arrangement, their parents were still bitter that none of their children hadn't gotten engaged or married despite him and Li Meili already being of marriageable age.

  He could hear his sister snorting at the other end of the line, so unladylike for her status. If their mother could hear Li Meili right now, she would surely shriek dramatically and scold his sister.

  "Meili…" He warned her. He didn't want to hear the complaints that she should have said directly to their parents.

  "I know, so why is he still single? Too busy at work like you?" Li Meili smirked. "Can't move on from his first love and chose to remain single throughout his life?"

  Li Yuanyi ran a hand over his face. Surely, his sister knew where to poke his weaknesses.

  "I don't know the details and if you could have just answered my emails and messages that would be great. Do you think I would really chase after the empress if I haven't tried to contact you?" He defended.

  Li Meili hummed. He was right. She rarely checked her email and would ignore anything that didn't hold importance in her inbox.

  "Well, too bad I'm not interested, my dear brother. Can you tell Father to stop setting me up with blind dates? I will marry whenever I feel like it. It's not like I'm missing out on something just because most women at my age were already married and have children of their own. I like to enjoy my time. Thank you very much."

  She heard her brother sighed. They probably have different reasons why they were still single and unmarried, but Li Meili was pretty sure he could understand her sentiments.

  "Alright. I'll see what I can do."