CHAPTER 666: DEVOLVING PR CRISIS

Hearing Xiaoyun’s reassurance, Li Fa finally regained some of his courage from earlier to speak up again.

"It’s two years in prison or longer... And all your previous marriages beyond the first would be considered as void."

"Very well then... Here, put me in handcuffs and let me serve my sentence. You don’t have to wait any longer."

As Xiaoyun reached his hand out, Li Fa’s face looked even more nervous than before as he just froze still, not moving a single bit.

"Mister, this isn’t funny..." Li Fa quietly murmured.

"You got no sense of humor, Li Fa... Anyway, tell the plaintiff that if he wanted to marry his two wives, he would be more than happy to do so."

"Should I adjust the marriage laws then?" Li Fa asked, realizing what Xiaoyun was trying to imply.

"What do you think? Li Fa? I’m sure you’re smarter than me... Do I need to tell you everything that needs to be changed?"

"No, sir."

Just as Xiaoyun handed the two files back over to Li Fa, his mind suddenly had a little thought that popped up.

"Also, when you adjust the law, make it fair to both sides."

"Um... What do you mean by that, Governor?" Li Fa asked in confusion, unable to understand Xiaoyun’s vague answer.

"Do you think only men should be allowed to marry multiple wives? Do I need to elaborate any further?"

"No, sir!"

Li Fa quickly packed up the two files, leaving the room before Xiaoyun could say anything else.

"Maybe this was a mistake... But what else can I do?"

Xiaoyun wondered as his mind could already imagine the public backlash that would come out of this if it were rolled out, especially if he implemented both ways.

At the same time, there were no other ways to justify it legally. Nor is he willing to compromise his wives’ equal status among each other.

"Wait, Li Fa, come back!"

---

In the end, Xiaoyun chose to create another special exception, allowing the plaintiff to marry his two wives just like Lingang.

Adding another person to someone’s government record was much easier than risking public backlash for allowing polygamy and polyandry.

Everything seemed to be fine as the day went on... Until both cases’ plaintiffs decided to go to a newspaper outlet the next day.

The first case with regard to compensation barely made a splash. But the second case, however, spread like wildfire.

Everyone in the town started debating with one another. But they weren’t debating if polygamy should be allowed or not.

They were all debating whether Xiaoyun had the right to create such a special exception. One that goes above the country’s original law.

One that Xiaoyun had promised previously to treat himself at the same level as everyone else and not to treat anyone else above the law.

---

"Xiaoyun, what the fuck was going through your head?"

Yuqi questioned in anger as all of his wives surrounded him in the middle of the living room, with a newspaper right in the middle of the coffee table.

The only person missing was Lily, who was assigned babysitting duty in the backyard with their kids.

"I didn’t expect this to be that bad. How am I supposed to know that idiot would go to the newspaper and boast about it?"

"Why did you even give him the exception in the first place? Why would you make it bigger than it needed to be?" Wuli questioned.

"I just thought it wasn’t that big of a deal... I mean, why should the government step in the way of three people who are happily married to each other?"

Xiaoyun tried to argue back, but it was completely useless as none of his wivies looked remotely happy with it at all.

"Not that big of a deal? The entire office was talking about it. Even people in Yueyue’s workplace and Nami’s workplace were all talking about it." Yuqi argued.

"The schools, too," Shuli added.

"Okay, maybe this went a little bigger than I had expected... But it’s going to die down in a week or so." Xiaoyun quietly murmured.

"Die down? This thing is only going to get bigger by the time it is the weekend." Yueyue warned.

"If we don’t handle this well, our entire family will have a PR disaster waiting at our hands," Nami added.

"What do you want me to do? Go back and tell that guy that his marriage to his two wives is now canceled?"

Everyone fell into silence as they all could see the two woman in wedding dresses happily carrying their husband in the newspaper.

They couldn’t bring themselves to say yes, knowing how unfair it would be to the three people in the newspaper.

"Not that. But we need to do something to change the public perception. Or else half of the people in the town think we’re above the laws."

"Are we not above the law?"

The moment Kate spoke up, the living room fell into dead silence... Until Leyan finally decided to chime in.

"She isn’t wrong. The marriage law in this country specifically forbids polygamy. There is no other way around it."

"Mom! Stop making it sound worse... We need real solutions, not just to sit around and wait it out."

"I mean, isn’t the best solution to wait it out? Giving it a cold treatment, as your country’s proverb puts it."

Seeing Anna’s calm demeanor, Yuqi couldn’t help but feel she was the only one who was worried about this PR crisis.

"People have memories. It’s going to be a ticking time bomb if we don’t address it somehow." Yuqi argued.

"Um, I think Anna is right... We really should just wait it out, I think." Tianci surprisingly joins Anna’s side.

"Shuli, you’re the smart one here. What do you think we should do?" Yuqi asked, looking over to her with a glimmer of hope.

"We probably should do something about it. But I’m not sure what we needed to do exactly."

Shuli answered as she scratched her head, unable to really think of an answer, as she had never faced this kind of problem before.

"You know what, Xiaoyun, you created this disaster yourself. You’re going to be the one dealing with it."

With Yuqi giving up in frustration, Xiaoyun’s face looked much calmer than any of them expected, as he only shrugged his shoulder.

"I’ll handle it myself. You guys don’t have to worry about it... Nothing is going to change about you guys being married to me."

"You better not make it worse," Wuli murmured as she couldn’t help but have a bad feeling about the future.

"Trust me, I have been through much worse PR crises before. This is just a nothingburger in comparison."

Seeing how confident Xiaoyun looked all of a sudden, everyone had no other choice but to put their trust in him.

---

As the last Friday of July arrived, Xiaoyun was at the headquarters of Luoping Daily the first thing in the morning.

"Good morning, Governor Chen. What brought you here today?" Shen Wen curiously asked as he brought Xiaoyun into his office.

"I want you to help me with something."

"Oof, you’re talking about that news coverage yesterday... Mr.Governor, I have to be honest with you, I already told my reports not to cover it."

"I know you didn’t put that into Luoping Daily yesterday. But other outlets... They don’t have a single brain cell when they are reporting news."

"Governor Chen, let’s not beat around the bush. What do you want me to do exactly?" Shen Wen asked impatiently.

"I want you to help me with my reputation."

"That’s..."

"I know it’s hard. But if you help me, I’ll owe you a favor in the future. I know you already have an idea of how to resolve this."

After a long silence, Shen Wen finally spoke up again.

"Mr.Governor, the only advice I can give you is to let this die down on its own... I’m not even sure if there really is a solution to this problem."

"Really? There’s nothing I can do?" Xiaoyun questioned, not really taking Shen Wen’s word at face value.

"I’m being fully serious right now, Governor. There’s no other way to sugarcoat it... It’s impossible to avoid when you’re... married to nine wives."

"So I should just sit it out and hope this goes away by the end of the week?"

"Yeah. But I do have an alternative solution if you really want to try it out, though." Shen Wen suddenly suggested.

"What is it?"

"Well, recently I bought a small property located in Guangzhou... You know the TV station in Yuexiu District, right?"

"You mean the Pearl River Station?" Xiaoyun asked, his mind beginning to realize what Shen Wen was trying to suggest.

"Yeah, I just got it to work properly with a small team a few days ago... I was thinking maybe we could have you live debate some people."