Marriage

Some bonds of fate are like this: You catch a fleeting glimpse of someone many years ago, then meet them again years later. Even that brief glance can bring back the time and scene of your first encounter, along with the sunshine and rain from that day. That's what it means to be destined.

Gu Chengyan's profession had cast him in the role of an onlooker.

Three years ago and three years later: the same, yet different.

Three years ago, he witnessed her happiness. Three years later, he also witnessed her misfortune.

The same thing was that he was still an onlooker. The difference was that he was now a single man, and she was a single woman. There were no romantic entanglements between them, no shackles of marriage. They were both free.

Gu Chengyan had wondered what would have happened if he hadn't gone to her wedding three years ago, if he hadn't gone to the old family home three years later; if he had never met her, if he had never fallen in love with her; if he hadn't believed so firmly from the start. Perhaps he wouldn't be who he was now. And wouldn't the same be true for Zhou Zhining?

If they were destined to be together, what did it matter if they'd missed their chance once?

"You use the fact that you've been married to turn me down. Two years ago, I had no right to say this, but now I do. We're as bad as each other, so neither of us can look down on the other."

He was by her side for two weddings: first, he watched her marry another man; then, he married her himself.