A Secret Crush Comes True: Contract Spouses Who Refuse to Divorce

Thirty minutes after getting their marriage licenses, Gu Chenzhou handed Lin Wan a fifteen-point marriage agreement: no interference in each other's lives, separate bedrooms, Sunday dinner only once a week, and after two years, they would each go their own way.

Lin Wan signed without hesitation. All she wanted was to save Chengxintang, her time-honored shop on the brink of collapse, then go to Dunhuang alone two years later.

But on the last page of the agreement, there was one more handwritten line:

“P.S. Lin Wan doesn't eat cilantro. I've already told the auntie who works at our home.”

Later, she discovered that this man, who claimed they had “only known each other for twenty-seven days,” knew she drank half a cup of warm water before bed, knew she held a knife in her left hand, and knew she picked out each strand of ginger and put it on the edge of her plate. In the agreement, he drew clear lines between them. In their daily life, every step he took brought him closer.

Until late one night, she saw through a crack in the study door that he had written on the calendar: “Day 60, 670 left.”

He was counting down. So was she.

She just didn't know yet that for some people, this two-year pact had been a long time coming.