Starlit Tea Talk [Marriage Before Love]

Marriage first, love later | Contract marriage | Three-year age gap | The hero falls first | Mutual salvation

Food | Everyday life | Each other's first love | Happy ending

Baker x Children's illustrator

Bright and carefree, warm on the outside and cool within x Quietly sultry, cool on the outside and warm within

1.

He Youning first met Jiang Xin at a matchmaking dinner full of undercurrents.

Jiang Xin looked aloof and rarely smiled. His voice was as steady as a little square of cream cake.

He wasn't He Youning's type, but she didn't mind looking at him.

Desperate to deal with her family's forceful matchmaking pressure and focus on her career, she came up with the craziest idea of her life.

Become marriage partners, sign a contract, and get married in a flash.

2.

Before getting their marriage certificate, they met their elders together, smiling in perfect unison.

On their first night after moving in, they politely took separate rooms and left each other alone.

He Youning focused on her career and loved a lively atmosphere, while Jiang Xin was quiet and worked from home.

Every day, she left before dawn with his door shut. Every night, when she came home, he was behind his closed door, staying up late to meet his deadlines.

They hardly saw each other after getting married. They came and went like roommates, a plastic couple who treated each other with perfect courtesy.

3.

Jiang Xin was aloof and kept odd hours, so He Youning assumed he disliked their sham marriage too.

But to fulfill the terms of their contract, they had to spend time together up close and pretend to be madly in love in front of everyone.

She thought the contract would go as planned and eventually be terminated. But then she noticed Jiang Xin changing.

As time passed, he seemed to shed his coldness, growing clingy and sweet, like a pool of thick maple-syrup cream chocolate.

To fulfill the contract's requirement that they maintain a married life, their quiet nights gradually filled with the stirrings of desire and surging love.

He Youning, dazed from his kisses: ...Wait, what happened to the contract?

4.

Jiang Xin was antisocial, gloomy, and a little world-weary. After being forced to meet several matchmaking prospects, he agreed to this contract marriage.

And so he gained a wife, along with cream puffs, cookies, apple pie, scones, egg tarts, and Basque cheesecake.

But Jiang Xin never expected that after getting married, he would feel a happiness he'd never known before.

Sweetness, warmth, and light. They were addictive.

So he quietly turned their sham marriage into a real one, luring her in and making her lose control.

Jiang Xin leaned down, his warm breath brushing her ear: How about we don't end the contract?

Core theme: Love can melt any ice