Love isn’t always love at first sight. Sometimes it quietly takes root through day-to-day companionship, misunderstandings, and learning to fit together. A real marriage isn’t the end of romance, but the beginning of understanding and companionship. Lin Zhixia stood outside the Civil Affairs Bureau, looking down at the vivid red marriage certificate in her hands, her fingertips trembling slightly.
The morning sun slanted across the cover. The three gold-embossed characters for “Marriage Certificate” flashed in the light, as if mocking her absurdity.
She, Lin Zhixia, was a 26-year-old freelance illustrator. Today, she had married a man she had known for less than seventy-two hours.
His name was Shen Yan, 30, a lawyer. He stood 186 centimeters tall, with striking features and a cool gaze, like a legal statute whose pages would never reach a tender chapter.
They had met at the “Special Marriage Counseling Center,” a place dedicated to matching people who had a “need for marriage” but no “desire to marry”…
