[Marriage before love / Both leads are each other's first / Slow-burn romance / Five-year age gap / Sweet romance]
A resilient, gentle, cool beauty × a self-disciplined, courteous, scheming CEO
Under the influence of a drug, Xu Chuli fell asleep with someone. Unable to remember what he looked like, she left 2,000 yuan behind while he was away and fled.
Back at the old family home, the culprits were waiting for her. Using her “lost virtue” as an excuse, they tried to force her to marry a distant, no-good relative of her aunt by marriage.
Xu Chuli rolled her eyes. “Please, I can practically see the strings of your abacus flying into my face!”
Get married?
Of course she would, but she could rent someone to marry her. There was no way she'd marry a thug.
Just as she was fretting over finding someone for a fake marriage, her stepsister called.
Stepsister: “You're part of the Shen family too. You're taking your place in the betrothal between the Zhou and Shen families.”
The Zhou and Shen families' betrothal? Her?
She asked timidly, “To Big Brother Zhou?”
Stepsister: “Yes, to Zhou Yan.”
Who was Zhou Yan? The head of the Zhou family, one of Jingbei's most powerful clans: aloof, abstinent, self-disciplined, and courteous.
But rumors said he was gay!
Xu Chuli had her reservations, after all, she couldn't afford to cross someone that powerful.
After her best friend talked some sense into her, she saw the light.
Gay was great! They could leave each other alone after the wedding, and once everything was settled, getting divorced would be easy. Perfect!
She imagined married life as one where they stayed out of each other's way, the sisters all lived happily ever after, and she could enjoy shipping couples to her heart's content.
So why wasn't things going the way she imagined?
What happened to him liking men? What happened to their being a respectful married couple?
Then one day, the scheming CEO Zhou finally showed his true colors.
“Xixi, that 2,000 yuan is ironclad proof! You have to take responsibility for me!!!”
“Xixi, I've liked you since you were nineteen.”
…
