Yaoyao [Marriage Before Love]

Coming soon: Raising My Childhood Friend, Jin Yue. Please add it to your collection 🥰

Synopsis of Yao Yao

Obliviously charming heroine / gentle, sweet girl & affectionate puppy-like man / jealous, possessive husband

Mutually devoted, both virgins, each other’s first love, happy ending.

Marriage first, love later from the heroine’s perspective | Secret crush coming true from the hero’s perspective | Childhood friends | Sweet everyday romance | A green-tea puppy’s daily jealousy

*

After meeting six prospective partners in a month, Jiang Shuyao was exhausted, but her father was still dead set on seeing her married.

That was when her childhood friend, Duan Xiao, proposed that they get married.

He promised, “After we marry, I won’t interfere in anything you do. Whenever you want a divorce, we’ll get one.”

Jiang Shuyao and Duan Xiao had been childhood friends, and they’d covered for each other to fend off admirers more than once. Marrying him would be easy enough.

So that summer, at the age of twenty-five, Jiang Shuyao and Duan Xiao registered their marriage.

-

After they married, Duan Xiao kept his promise and never interfered in her affairs.

Jiang Shuyao planned to set him free as soon as he fell for someone, then gradually fade out of his life with her blessing so they could both move on in peace.

Until she came home a little late after celebrating a male friend’s birthday.

Her husband, who was supposedly just her childhood friend, emerged from his room without a word. His handsome face was flushed with a high fever, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist from behind.

His tall frame enveloped her as he rubbed his burning cheek against the crook of her neck again and again.

His hoarse voice betrayed all his hurt and fear. “Yao Yao… You don’t want me anymore, do you?”

Jiang Shuyao hurriedly reached back to touch his forehead, thinking in shock, Had his fever addled his brain?

Their marriage was fake to begin with!

*

Everyone could tell how Duan Xiao felt about Jiang Shuyao, except Jiang Shuyao herself.

After years as childhood friends, he’d been forced to put off confessing his feelings again and again. At last, an opportunity had come.

She urgently needed someone to marry.

At three in the morning, Duan Xiao dreamed that Jiang Shuyao had married someone else. He jolted upright in bed, drenched in cold sweat.

At 3:05 a.m., he called a friend whose aunt was a top French jewelry designer.

“Help me order a diamond ring, the biggest and flashiest one you can find! The sooner, the better!”

His friend was baffled. “You don’t even have a girlfriend. Why do you need a diamond ring?”

Duan Xiao gritted his teeth. “Once the ring arrives, I will!”

Duan Xiao: Whatever, getting her to agree to marry me is a start.

The opportunity had come too suddenly. Before he could get ready, she was already looking for a husband among the matchmaking candidates.

There were so many toads in the world, enough to make him furious. She met one today, then another tomorrow…

If witchcraft really existed, he’d turn all those men into little dolls and stick them with ten thousand needles a day!

Jiang Shuyao could only have him by her side. All those other toads, hop away, hop away, hop away!!!

[Bonus scene]

Jiang Shuyao had never met a man as sensitive as Duan Xiao.

She had to travel out of town for work and didn’t take him with her.

He crouched beside her packed suitcase, looking up at her pitifully. “You don’t love me anymore, do you?”

She worked late and, not wanting to wake him, slipped into bed without embracing him.

He clung to her insistently, gently nibbling her ear as he complained, “You don’t love me anymore, do you?”

Jiang Shuyao silently watched the man clinging to her like an octopus.

A few seconds later, she gave in and hugged him back.

Oh well. What could she do? She loved him.

Reading guide:

1. The vows in the synopsis are sourced from the internet. The line “There are so many toads in the world… She met one today, then another tomorrow” was inspired by Consort Hua’s dialogue in Empresses in the Palace.

2. The story is mainly set in the city, with a few memories from their younger years woven in.

3. This is a sweet urban fairy tale, so don’t expect it to be logical. All professional details are based on information found online. Please don’t overthink them.

Coming soon

A teary childhood friend who knows a little Iron Head Kung Fu × a cold, warm-hearted older childhood friend who says one thing but means another (one-on-one romance, both virgins, each other’s first love, happy ending)

*In the beginning: an innocent girl × a gentle older boy. Later: a popular girl × a brooding, jealous older man.

Childhood friends growing up together | Brother-and-younger-sister dynamic | Age gap | Reunion after years apart | Cozy everyday life | Light healing

*

Cong Jinyue was obsessed with Calabash Brothers from a young age, especially admiring the Steel Gourd Baby’s copper head and iron arms. Her catchphrase soon became the character’s famous line: “My head isn’t made of dough!”

From then on, she grew ever more proficient in the art of Iron Head Kung Fu.

-

After her parents divorced, Cong Jinyue moved with her mother to live at her grandmother’s home. Her grandmother spoiled her with all the snacks and toys she wanted, and life was wonderful. The only thing missing was that she hadn’t made any new friends yet.

One day, while sharing her snacks and toys with the other children in the neighborhood, she saw a tall, slender boy walking straight toward her.

He glared sternly at the group, and her playmates scattered like startled birds.

Cong Jinyue looked up at the handsome boy, who stared back at her expressionlessly.

She took a deep breath and marched over. As he watched her coolly, she gave him a powerful headbutt, then sat down and burst into tears.

She blamed him for scaring off her new friends. He wondered what her head was made of and how it could be so hard.

The boy held his aching stomach, crouched down, and offered her an ice cream cone. In an awkward but decisive tone, he said, “Stop crying. I’ll play with you.”

The moon’s little haul for today:

1. One chocolate ice cream cone

2. One handsome older boy who’ll play with her

-

Xu Xingyan had only stepped in because he saw something unfair happening. He’d “just happened” to help a little girl chase off the kids who were tricking her out of her snacks and toys. He never expected to get pulled into her life.

She called him “Big Brother Xingxing” for ten years. He stood by her through the rain-soaked years of her adolescence, clearing the thorns from her path before leading her forward by the hand…

Until family troubles forced him to move abroad.

By then, the girl had begun to shoot up, growing taller by the day. On the day they parted, she bumped her head against his chest and, teary-eyed, scolded him: “You liar! You promised you’d stay with me forever. I’m never talking to you again!”

Later, just as he’d hoped, she grew into a bright, cheerful young woman and made plenty of friends. She was no longer the little girl who’d worried about having no friends.

He returned from overseas carrying pain concealed beneath his dignified appearance, standing far away from the crowd as he watched her laughing and chatting happily.

He hid his wounds and put on the familiar facade of the boy next door she remembered, then walked toward her one step at a time.

The moon bumped into his arms and looked up at him with a pained expression.

He smiled. “Your Iron Head Kung Fu has gotten rusty.”

[Bonus scene]

At eleven at night, Cong Jinyue called him, her voice slurred. She’d clearly had quite a bit to drink.

Xu Xingyan dropped his work and sped off to pick her up, only to find that the irritating male classmate beside her was using her drunken state to ramble on about all kinds of nonsense.

The veins on the back of his hand bulged as he gripped the steering wheel. When he heard the boy ask, “Moon, will you be my girlfriend?” he finally lost patience. He got out, snatched Cong Jinyue, who was too drunk to tell up from down, and took her home.

An old jar of jealousy had been quietly knocked over. Cong Jinyue, completely unaware, slept until morning. When she woke, she found herself facing eyes filled with jealousy and desire.

Remembering what had happened the night before, she sensed trouble and tried to scramble away, but he hooked an arm around her and pulled her back.

Cong Jinyue was left seeing stars. Sobbing, she scolded him, “Xu Xingyan, you jerk! You weren’t like this before!”

He showed no sign of stopping. His thin lips brushed her flushed ear, and his low, husky voice grazed her eardrum. “If your big brother is a little more of a jerk, you won’t leave him, right, Moon?”

*Moon Girl × Big Brother Xingxing

* A story about growing up and love. At first, the older boy guides the girl; later, the girl helps him heal.

* Though the heroine’s family is broken, she has plenty of love in her life. She’s a little timid at first, but gradually grows into herself. She’s a very lovable girl.

(The details of the setting, such as how long they’re apart, may be adjusted slightly when the story officially begins, but the overall framework will remain unchanged.)

Theme: Cherish the people you have