After Being Reborn, I Agreed to a Business Marriage

Shen Zhiyi died far from home, and it wasn't a dignified end.

In life, Shen Zhiyi had lived in great splendor and happiness, carefree and uninhibited, adored by countless people and always in the spotlight.

Everyone knew she was the little princess of the Shen family, treasured above all.

Everything changed when she refused a business marriage in pursuit of true love and married Gong Heming instead.

Gong Heming was an ambitious man with extraordinary patience. Perhaps he had once loved her. When he did, he pursued her passionately, promising her the stars and moon and bowing to her every wish.

But when he stopped loving her, he truly stopped.

She tried to win him back, but all she got was this: "Shen Zhiyi, how can you still be so naive? Do you think you're still young? After all these years, I'm tired of you."

Shen Zhiyi left him in despair.

Her parents were already gone, so she traveled far away to clear her head. She died suddenly at a hot spring resort.

After death, she became a ghost and saw her ex-husband rush over. The man who normally cared most about appearances had rumpled clothes, an unshaven face, and bloodshot eyes. He looked utterly devastated.

Shen Zhiyi felt nothing, apart from finding it a little amusing.

She thought her ex-husband would take her home to be buried, but after receiving her ashes, he hid them in his house. Even as a ghost, she couldn't find release. She had to watch him marry, have children, love another woman, and live happily ever after.

Not until he died.

He was finally dead.

Only then did she learn that the world she had lived in was a book, and she was merely the male lead's short-lived ex-wife, mentioned in only a few lines. Her sole purpose was to be a plot device, so that all the pain the male lead suffered because of her could be healed by the female lead's tenderness.

She had lived for thirty-two years, and her soul had been bound for fifty-five, yet she was only a few sentences in a book!

Her part in the entire book took up less than half a page!

Utterly ridiculous.

Reborn, she returns to the age of twenty-two, when her parents are still alive and arranging her marriage.

Her prospective husband in this business alliance is Yan Qingchuan, the man who built a business legend from the ground up. Perhaps because his heart held nothing but grand ambitions, Shen Zhiyi knows he never married, not even by the time he died.

They had met a few times as children. Meeting again at their arranged marriage introduction, Shen Zhiyi asks Yan Qingchuan, "If I can never love you in my life, would you still be willing to marry me?"

Even in his youth, Yan Qingchuan was already sharp-edged and difficult to approach. He scoffs at her words. "Love? This is just a business marriage."

Shen Zhiyi is reassured.

Being a fool once is enough. In this life, she no longer needs any so-called true love.

Her wedding to Yan Qingchuan is a magnificent affair, known throughout the city.

While she is in the dressing room, a man suddenly barges in. Gong Heming, who has just regained his memories of his past life, glares at her in anguish. "Shen Zhiyi, you can't! You're my wife. How can you marry someone else? You can't marry him!"

Yan Qingchuan is in the dressing room too.

He frowns at the man.

Then he calls security, and they drag him out.

Afterward, Yan Qingchuan turns back to Shen Zhiyi as if nothing happened. His tone is unconcerned, though faintly reassuring. "Some lunatic wandered in from who knows where. Let's continue with the wedding."

2022.08.31

Theme: Finding happiness again.