Better to Code Than Marry First, Fall in Love Later

Coming next: "Sunset Falls into an Orange Sea [Rekindled Love]", "Rain from the Past [Chasing Your Wife to the Crematorium]", and "The Puppy Says You're the Culprit". Please add them to your reading list~

[Absent-minded, slow-to-catch-on programmer x gentle, scheming CEO. Marriage first, love later. His secret crush comes true.]

When Wen Sijia was passionately arguing with the product manager, insisting that if they couldn't make the app's theme color adjust automatically to match the phone case, they might as well kill her and Java together, Ji Shiming walked past.

Wen Sijia called Ji Shiming over, hoping the CEO would tell the product manager to stop pushing her to violence.

The man who had shared her bed the night before cleared his throat twice, then spoke up: "What if we force the phone's front-facing camera to turn on, use the reflection in the user's cornea to capture an image, then use AI to extract the color?"

"Why not just read the user's brain waves and convert them into RGB colors?"

Wen Sijia thought she might have picked the wrong person to attack.

*

Wen Sijia and Ji Shiming agreed to get married just to appease their families. They weren't going to do that marriage-first, love-later thing, but Ji Shiming was acting very strangely.

He reported his schedule, came running whenever she called, kept spending money on her, and turned dark as charcoal whenever she went out to eat with another man...

Feeling that Ji Shiming was seriously hindering her progress in tech, she solemnly declared, "Let's get divorced. You have no respect for our contract. We agreed not to fall in love after getting married."

"Who told you this was marriage first, love later?"

Ji Shiming pulled her into his arms. His eyes seemed to hold a boundless river of stars. Then he added in her ear, "Besides, after we get divorced, who'll take care of you at night?"

Good looks are dangerous. So dangerous.

*

The wedding ring on Ji Shiming's left hand was impossible to miss. Everyone wondered who the CEO's wife might be.

Then one day, Wen Sijia, one of the company's technical leads, showed up wearing the same ring. As rumors ran wild, she kept typing without missing a beat and calmly replied, "I found it on the road."

Ji Shiming then made a very public confession: "I'm the one who threw it away."

Back to the night before.

"If you don't make it public tomorrow, we'll try again in a different position."

"Ji Shiming, you jerk!"

Bonus scene:

Wen Sijia thought Ji Shiming was too clingy, so she made him an auto-reply AI.

Ji Shiming asked the AI: [Who do you love most?]

AI: [My parents]

Ji Shiming asked again: [What about your husband?]

AI: [He ran off with someone]

Wen Sijia said the AI just needed more training data, so Ji Shiming sent the "artificial idiot" the message [Your husband hasn't run off. He loves you] three times every day.

Blurb for "Sunset Falls into an Orange Sea [Rekindled Love]"

[Gentle, resilient genius physics professor x proud, devoted head of a conglomerate. Rekindled love, bittersweet tension, love rivals.]

He Yan, the handsome finance major at Jingbei University, was a rich young master, carefree and flamboyant.

Xu Xicheng, the top physics student, was disciplined and proper, spending all day studying in the library.

At a gathering, a group of people got drunk. Thinking He Yan had fallen asleep, Xu Xicheng was seized by an inexplicable urge to end her doomed crush with a kiss.

But the instant her lips were about to touch his cheek, the man pretending to sleep suddenly turned his head, and their lips met perfectly.

He Yan gazed into the dark eyes of the girl whose cheeks had turned red, his playful smile growing. "How about giving me a try?"

The story that followed could have made up for all the pain and sorrow in the world, if only you could leave out the ending.

But what story can leave out its ending?

She was the one who ended things. That proud, unruly man spent the entire night standing in the rain.

*

They met again seven years later at a tech innovation gala. Xu Xicheng had become the youngest associate professor in the physics department at Jingbei University.

He Yan had rehearsed their reunion countless times. He would put the person who had abandoned him in her place, act cold enough, and make her regret it.

But all those feelings came crashing down the moment he saw the ill-fitting coat draped over Xu Xicheng's shoulders.

At the banquet, He Yan stopped her. His unfathomable eyes seemed ready to devour her whole. "What are you to him?"

Her reply was even more decisive than it had been that night in the rain: "What does that have to do with you, Mr. He?"

Seven years really was a long time, long enough to forget someone with ease.

But how could it be long enough for her to stop loving him?

*

People say that the first person to fall in love is the one who loses, but He Yan knew for certain that he had been utterly defeated from the very beginning.

He admitted defeat. He surrendered.

As long as Xu Xicheng would turn and look at him once, he would do anything. He was no worse than the men by her side.

So why wouldn't she give him even one chance?

"Xu Xicheng, is your heart made of stone?"

"I guess it is."

"Then why can they all have you, but I can't?"

Xu Xicheng lowered her eyes and answered with silence.

He Yan had lost all reason. He grabbed both her wrists and kissed her by force, ignoring her struggles, until the salt of her tears mingled with the taste of blood between their lips.

When he came to his senses, he pulled her tightly into his arms and apologized again and again.

"Don't cry, little Orange. Don't cry. It's my fault. I'm sorry..."

But the person sobbing in his arms only managed to say, haltingly, "A-Yan... let's just leave it..."

*

It's absurd for people who study physics to talk about fate.

But Xu Xicheng still believed that the moment the singularity appeared, everything had already been decided.

Even the Christ the Redeemer statue atop Corcovado Mountain might not be able to see through fate. How could she, caught up in the mortal world, know which way the next gust of wind would blow?

What are you rambling on about? I want to kiss you.

He Yan, whose head was spinning, decided to fight magic with magic and bent down to kiss her.

"Why think so much? All you need to know is that a man named He Yan loves you more than anyone else in the world."

Theme: Pursue your dreams.