In fact, when Old Cui brought up this matter, he did not have much confidence.
Everyone in the world believed that once Zhao Changhe made it onto the Human List, the marriage would naturally fall into place, and even Cui Yuanyang himself thought so. Only the two people involved in the garden pavilion conversation that year knew that this was not completely the case.
Back then, it was Cui Wenjing's craftiness and rhetorical manipulation that led to the three-year agreement. If he had not played his tricks, Zhao Changhe would actually have refused.
Yes, Zhao Changhe intended to refuse. It wasn't the story that outsiders understood, where Zhao Changhe went to propose and faced difficulties.
But, he got wound around by old fox's cunning and ended up establishing a three-year pact, originally with Yangyang's reputation in mind and also because the old fox thought this guy could be the Crown Prince. Having a fallback was a win-win.
