Mutual crush × marriage first, love later
Gentle, darkly shrewd tech tycoon and CEO × cool, aloof art teacher
1
Today, Xu Muyao is meeting the ninth blind date her mother has arranged for her. She plans to go through the motions like she always does, until she sees the person behind the cafe window.
Zhou Yuheng, the man she's had a crush on for years.
She doesn't know if he remembers her, so she puts all her little thoughts away and pretends they're meeting for the first time.
"I hear Miss Xu has been going on a lot of blind dates and is in a hurry to get married. I happen to be looking for someone to marry, too. Do you think I'd be suitable?"
Xu Muyao takes a long time to manage a reply. "Don't you have someone you like?"
The man doesn't answer. Instead, he slides a prepared agreement toward her. "A two-year contract marriage. Fifty million."
Xu Muyao takes a deep breath and signs.
Getting to marry the man she's had a crush on for two years: Heaven must be looking out for her.
2
Everyone is shocked that a rising tech tycoon who came out of nowhere in just two years would marry an obscure art teacher.
No one believes in this marriage.
His friends all assume he got married out of spite after failing to win over his first love.
Yet after the wedding, Zhou Yuheng still fulfills her every wish, a model gentleman of a husband.
Xu Muyao gradually loses herself in the warmth he creates, wondering if he might like her even a little.
Then the woman said to be his first love returns to the country, and he doesn't come home all night.
Xu Muyao knows that her time occupying another woman's place has come to an end. She should give it back to the real Mrs. Zhou.
She prepares the divorce papers and signs her name.
Zhou Yuheng comes home after a sleepless night, looking exhausted and disheveled. He sees the divorce papers on the coffee table, his eyes red as he corners her against the wall. "What do I have to do to make you love me?"
"Please don't leave me, Muyao."
3
A few months later, Xu Muyao finds a photo tucked away in a corner of Zhou Yuheng's study.
She wants to know who the person Zhou Yuheng admitted to having loved really was.
In the photo, a person in a white dress stands in the blue sea, where the sky meets the ocean.
It's her at eighteen.
So the marriage she thought was just a contract had been his long-laid plan all along. The love she thought was one-sided had already received an answer.
This long-delayed photograph feels like his long-delayed confession.
Little bonus scene
Xu Muyao waves the photo of herself at eighteen in front of her husband, having found his weakness.
"So my husband was already in love with me when I was eighteen."
Zhou Yuheng is exposed and tries to snatch the photo.
Xu Muyao is quicker and pulls it away.
"Then can I hear my husband say the words I've been longing to hear?"
Zhou Yuheng holds his wife close. "Xu Muyao, I love you. Forever, until death do us part."
Will start posting once the bookmarks reach the target by the end of October.
Theme: Love each other well
