The New Besieged City: An Era of Marriage and Childbearing

In 2033, Hongdu. Neon-lit skyscrapers pierced the clouds, and AI butlers moved through smart apartments. AI could screen potential partners, and genetic technology could customize your children. Marriage and having children were no longer mandatory milestones in life, but a free choice for every young person. After 52 failed blind dates, 32-year-old Lin Wan met Zhou Mingyuan, an algorithm engineer who believed everything in the world could be calculated: a man afraid to love, and a woman who didn’t understand love.

They turned marriage into a perfect “life partnership plan,” building a walled city with reason. But the real test began when they tried to have a child. Every step of assisted reproduction brought a struggle between hope and ethics, as embryos were assigned scores and life became a game of probabilities. If technology could solve the problem of having children, what was the true nature of marriage?

This is a near-future portrait of choices about marriage and parenthood. Algorithmic matchmaking, AI companions, assisted reproduction, marriage of convenience, single motherhood, and choosing to remain child-free: seven women and four paths, in an epic coming-of-age story about finding themselves and learning to reconcile amid the clash between technology and humanity, efficiency and emotion.