After Marrying a Big Shot, I Became the Laughingstock of the Whole City

When Gu Niannian had nowhere else to turn, she married Shen Yanqing, a powerful figure in Beijing’s elite circles. It was a one-year marriage contract: the Shen family would pay off her debts and cover her medical bills. The whole city was waiting to laugh at her. She thought it was just a transaction: they’d sleep in separate rooms and part ways after a year. But on the third day, she set out two place settings, and he noticed. She bought a pot of pothos, and he secretly learned how to care for it. The first time she cried in front of him, a new line appeared in his notes app. When their year was up, she chose to leave, believing he had married her out of guilt. Then he wrote a twelve-page letter, keeping track from day one to day two hundred. The final line read: “It wasn’t out of guilt. From the very first day, you were the only thing in my notes.”