(Clear-headed, independent only daughter from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai + cold, calculating big shot from Beijing’s elite circle)
During the Lantern Festival, Shen Zhiyun runs into a man at the Great King Temple.
He catches the ingot that falls from her hand.
She nods in thanks, only to hear him ask, “I hear this ingot pays back tenfold. Is that right?”
Shen Zhiyun nods, her gaze passing over the watch on his wrist, worth half the Shen family’s tea mountain. A thought stirs in her mind.
Several days later, she accompanies her father to a Buddhist temple.
As she kneels in prayer, someone chuckles beside her ear. “Miss Shen, does the tenfold repayment still stand?”
He is Lu Weijin, the rarely seen heir to the Lu family of Beijing.
He says, “The waters south of the Yangtze are too deep. I’m looking for a safe harbor.”
To save her family from crisis, Shen Zhiyun signs a prenuptial agreement and becomes his wife on a one-year contract.
Everyone laughs at her for reaching above her station, saying he’ll discard her sooner or later.
Until, at a banquet in Beijing’s elite circles, he bows to her in front of everyone.
Later, when a rival tries to destroy the Shen family’s century-old tea mountain, he shields her from the fire and is critically injured, ending up in the ICU.
The first thing he says when he wakes is, “The tea fields... are they safe?”
She clutches his hand, sobbing uncontrollably.
But he wipes away her tears and smiles as he confesses:
“Mrs. Lu, for the rest of my life, I’ll keep your name in my heart.”
