I Secretly Married the Man I Hadn’t Seen in Seven Years

During a livestream of the intangible cultural heritage exhibition, a million viewers are waiting to watch Zhaoying Pavilion go down over the word “plagiarism.”

Wen Zhaotang points out the swapped fake phoenix crown on the spot. While it burns, she forms a phoenix feather out of gold thread with her bare hands.

In the dead silence, a man walks through the crowd and places evidence sealed by a third party in her hand.

The whole internet spends the night trying to figure out who he is. Only Wen Zhaotang recognizes him: Zhou Jibai, the man who left without a word seven years ago.

She makes him an offer: a marriage of convenience, for one year. He signs so quickly, it’s as if he’s afraid she’ll change her mind.

Only after their wedding does she discover that his study holds every piece she has made since university. When she works late into the night, the light in the next room stays on just as late.

What she thought was a spur-of-the-moment decision was something he had planned and waited seven years for.

When the year is up, Wen Zhaotang has already printed the divorce papers.

He pushes another document toward her first. The space for the term is left blank.