The Moonlight Invoice

When Lin Wanwan, the invisible girl in the philosophy department, was worrying about paying for her younger sister’s tutoring, Lu Xingye, the aloof campus heartthrob from the economics department, handed her an absurd contract. “Pretend to be my girlfriend. Two thousand each time.” And so began a romance for hire. He needed her to fend off his family’s plans for an arranged marriage, while she needed the money to get through an urgent crisis.

She thought it was just acting, paid by the appearance, but he began engineering countless “chance encounters”: the seat beside hers in the library, medicine delivered on a rainy night, and silent protection when she was in trouble. And when his proud arranged match insulted her in public, Lu Xingye stepped in front of her and announced to everyone, “I’m the one pursuing her.”

Her heart skipped a beat before she knew it, but reality was cold and unforgiving. More than just the gulf between their family backgrounds stood between them: the contract itself. She couldn’t tell whether his tenderness was genuine or just good acting.

Only when a family crisis struck and he carefully protected her pride by calling it a “project consultant fee” did Lin Wanwan finally understand. Some contracts begin as a transaction, but become destiny along the way. Lu Xingye showed her in his own way: she had never been a bargaining chip in any deal. She was the one and only light he would defy every rule to reach.

“From a contract to a beating heart. You’re my little moonlight, illuminating every direction in the rest of my life.”