Only I Am at Ease: Marriage Before Love

This one is already written and will start updating this year. The neighboring novel, Marriage Before Love: Crazy Love, is complete.

Marriage Before Love / aloof, cocky bad-boy heir x sweet, easygoing girl with a painfully slow reaction time

Xie Youran was sweet-looking and well-behaved, a famously good girl in Nancheng’s social circle. The most out-of-character thing she had ever done was propose to marry Qi Yan.

Qi Yan was the heir apparent of Nancheng’s social circle, handsome in a rakish way and wildly unruly. He did whatever he pleased, and none of his relationships had ever lasted more than a month.

Although they belonged to the same circle, their paths would never ordinarily have crossed.

No one expected them to get their marriage certificates before graduating from university. Everyone thought their marriage was doomed. With a personality like Qi Yan’s, it was only a matter of time before he got bored and divorced her.

-

At first, Qi Yan figured he would eventually have to marry a woman from a family of equal standing. Rather than deal with troublesome women, Xie Youran seemed like a good choice. She was obedient and wouldn’t interfere in his affairs.

Before the wedding, they agreed not to interfere in each other’s private lives, apart from their “intimate sessions” a few times a week.

Unexpectedly, after they got married, Qi Yan started coming home earlier and earlier, while Xie Youran came home later and later.

One night, Xie Youran returned late from a class reunion and missed her ten o’clock curfew.

The moment she stepped into the entryway, a pair of hands pulled her over. The man kissed her earlobe and said through gritted teeth, “Your curfew is ten o’clock, Xie Youran.”

“Who was the guy who brought you home just now?”

“Every night you come home late, I’ll make you do it one more time. Begging me won’t help.”

*

After they married, Qi Yan and Xie Youran once gave each other the silent treatment over a petty argument. With a cold expression, Qi Yan declared, “If I’m the one who backs down this time, I’m a dog.”

His friends said nothing. They simply watched.

All evening, Qi Yan kept sneaking glances at his phone, distracted. In the end, he couldn’t resist picking it up. Pretending to be drunk, he called Xie Youran and played the victim: “Baby, they got me really drunk. My head hurts. Can you come pick me up?”

Before meeting his wife: Women are such a hassle.

After meeting his wife: Honey, pay attention to me~

#HisBuddiesAreTheOnesWhoTakeTheBlame

#SoWhatIfImXieYouransDog

Bonus Scene

At the interview for Nancheng’s annual business leader

The host asked, “Mr. Qi, was Nanshan Tech named after your WeChat nickname, ‘See the Southern Mountain’?”

Wearing a black suit, Qi Yan sat steadily on the sofa. “That’s right.”

The host said, “A lovely sentiment: ‘Leisurely, I see the southern mountain.’”

A rare smile spread across his usually cool eyes. “Yes. I like that sentiment.”

Long ago, Qi Yan’s friend Tan Youlin had asked him why he’d changed his plain old period for a WeChat nickname: See the Southern Mountain.

Leisurely, I see the southern mountain.

I like that sentiment.

I like you, Xie Youran.

-A Marriage Before Love, version 1.0: training your dog

-“Only You” is the meaning behind “Only Youran” (the heroine’s nickname is Youyou)

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Completed novel: Crazy Love [Marriage Before Love]

Tan Shu was a pampered little princess, spoiled and willful. Her fiancé, Han Yanchen, was her childhood sweetheart: gentle, considerate, young, and successful.

On the day of their engagement banquet, Han Yanchen took a call. For the first time, anxiety showed on his usually composed face. “Shushu, I’ll be right back.”

Tan Shu waited from morning until night, but Han Yanchen never returned. A paparazzo caught him coming and going from the villa of a newly popular actress, and Tan Shu went from being a princess everyone envied to a laughingstock among the elite.

Everyone said Han Yanchen had abandoned her for an actress.

Unable to stomach the humiliation, Princess Tan Shu announced that she would find a man better than Han Yanchen and get engaged within a month.

-

Xie Huaiji was the youngest head of the Beichen Group, ruthless and unscrupulous. Rumor had it that he had engineered his own elder brother’s car accident to secure the position of heir to the Xie family.

Tan Shu never expected her words to come true a month later.

The man’s black leather shoes stopped beside her skirt. His dark eyes were as deep as a pool as he looked down at her and asked, “Why are you crying?”

“Are you unhappy with how things turned out? I can help you.”

-

The engagement banquet for the little princess of the Tan Group was soon being arranged once more. Han Yanchen thought Tan Shu had said it in anger. They had been childhood sweethearts for so many years; she couldn’t live without him.

Until he saw the name of the groom-to-be on his childhood friend’s invitation: Xie Huaiji.

That day, rain poured down in torrents. Han Yanchen knelt outside Tan Shu’s villa through the storm, waiting all night, but she never came out.

Everyone said Xie Huaiji was cold and uncaring, interested only in profit and not in love. The little princess would probably be driven to tears and divorce within a week. Their marriage wouldn’t last.

Han Yanchen thought so too.

His Shushu was spoiled, willful, and free-spirited. Xie Huaiji wouldn’t have the patience to put up with her.

Yet he never expected to see that cold man waiting by the entrance to a banquet hall, holding a high heel and bending down to look into a car, speaking with endless patience. Then he leaned in and carried Tan Shu out. Han Yanchen noticed several thin red marks on the side of the man’s exposed neck.

“Do your fingernails hurt?” he heard Xie Huaiji ask softly. Tan Shu shook her head.

“Then why are you crying?”

“My lipstick is completely gone. It’s all your fault.”

“Mm. It’s my fault.”

No one knew that throughout all the years Tan Shu and Han Yanchen had been childhood sweethearts, Xie Huaiji had loved her for many years.

He had carefully arranged their breakup.

He had been waiting for this day for a long time.

Theme: If you set yourself a goal, work hard to achieve it instead of letting it fall through.