After my grandmother passes away, my maternal cousin pressures me to come up with 800,000 yuan in a week to redeem our old Western-style house. With a 500,000-yuan shortfall, I’m driven to the brink.
My best friend suggests, “Sign a one-year marriage contract. He pays, you marry him.”
The other party is Lu Chengyu, a reserved curator at a planetarium whose mother’s constant nagging about marriage has driven him crazy. He’s willing to pay 500,000 yuan for a year of peace and quiet.
I grit my teeth and agree.
I assume we’re just meeting each other’s needs, but after we move in together, his tenderness gradually envelops me: steaming porridge in the morning, keeping me company as I restore artifacts late at night, and teaching me to recognize the stars beneath the sweet osmanthus tree.
Until one night, he opens his palm to reveal the pink star-shaped hair clip I lost ten years ago.
“You dropped it when you left,” he says, looking at me. “I’ve been waiting for you for ten years.”
It turns out this contract marriage was never a coincidence.
He had been plotting to get close to me for ten years.
[Fake marriage, real devotion + fated reunion + mutual protection]
She said they’d divorce amicably after one year.
But he pins her beneath the sweet osmanthus tree:
“Our marriage certificate is real. And so is my wish to spend my whole life with you.”
