The silence that followed Zhou Yuxi's announcement was absolute and profound for approximately three seconds as every person in the room processed this unexpected declaration, their minds struggling to reconcile what they had just been told with everything they knew about social conventions and generational appropriateness and the complex web of relationships that connected their families.
Then chaos erupted, though not quite in the joyful way that might typically accompany a wedding announcement, but rather in a more complicated explosion of shock and astonishment and disbelief that came from family members who had known on some level that this was inevitable but had not actually prepared themselves for the reality of hearing it stated so baldly and with such absolute determination.
