A Marriage Contract from Years Past

My new story about a marriage that turns into love, A Tender Wedding Night, is now available.

Feng Yining has been promised in marriage since childhood. Her arranged match is the eldest son of the Pei family, the group's designated head. Before they register their marriage, they meet once.

At a banquet, the elegant, carefree man pays little attention to the people fawning over him. His eyes are weary, his manner cool and arrogant.

Before the wedding, they make an agreement: in public, they'll be a loving model couple; in private, they'll leave each other alone.

But after the wedding, Feng Yining realizes their marriage isn't quite the carefree arrangement she'd imagined. Trapped beside the sofa as the man bends over her, she tilts her head and asks, "That kind of cooperation you mentioned doesn't include sleeping together, does it?"

He gives her a cool glance. "Wife, are you hoping to turn this act into the real thing?"

...Feng Yining thinks to herself: I've met my match.

-

Later, Feng Yining is injured while working out of town. After wrapping up late at night, she passes a parked Maybach. Inside, a friend who came along says, "So that's why Xu dropped everything and left the banquet as soon as he saw the message, then drove all the way out to this remote place in the middle of the night. Other women can throw themselves at that cold fish all they like, but when it's about his sister-in-law, he really goes out of his way."

The man who unexpectedly appears in front of her sounds unusually cold. "You act tough when you should be letting yourself be pampered."

His tone is a little harsh. Feng Yining softly says they should go back, but he scoops her up in his arms.

The man looks down at the injured woman, whose eyes are slightly red, and furrows his brow. "Be good. You'll cry if you hurt yourself."

-

Feng Yining had thought that, to Pei Shixu, marriage was just a transaction, a performance for appearances, and that neither of them had to take responsibility for the other.

Then one night they went too far and lost control. Feng Yining signed the divorce papers.

But late that night, the man came home with his hair and cuffs damp and asked in a low voice:

"You really have to divorce me, don't you?"

Later, when Feng Yining goes out of town on business, the impeccably dressed man corners her against a floor-to-ceiling window.

His eyes dark and plaintive, he asks,

"Wife, you've played along with the tie and shirt clips. When are you going to give me an official title?"

"Are you still angry that I didn't take good enough care of you that night?"

-

Marriage first, love later / No secret crushes / Love grows over time / Seven-year age gap

Cool on the outside, passionate underneath head of the family x sweet, flirtatious heiress

---Coming soon: A Tender Wedding Night. Add it to your reading list---

The year Wen Shuyi graduates, she starts her first job and marries a stranger she's never met: the eldest son of the Shao family and the head of a corporate group her boss has been working hard to curry favor with.

One day after the wedding, Wen Shuyi notices that Shao Cen has hurt his arm and carefully bandages it for him.

The man lowers his eyes and lets the young woman fuss over him. His profile remains cool and distant. "Everyone else is afraid of me. Aren't you?"

"Do you want me to be afraid of you?"

Seeing the man keep a straight face as if he can't feel pain, Wen Shuyi realizes he's about to leave. She glances at the wound, frowning slightly, and gently advises him, "It's not healed yet. Don't move. It'll hurt."

Shao Cen glances at her. "You've wrapped me up like a mummy."

"Let me give my wife a reward. What would you like?"

Wen Shuyi pauses. Why is this man talking to her like she's a child?

-

Rumor has it that Shao Cen is ruthless in business and utterly lacking in human warmth. He has long neglected his new wife, who came from the south. They get along on the surface but are at odds underneath, and he's hardly ever home.

Even before the wedding, his friends worried about Wen Shuyi. Without the protection of the old madam, and with such a vast difference between their status and personalities, this marriage seemed far from a good match.

But only Wen Shuyi knows that when she first arrived and missed home, Shao Cen held her as she fell asleep, then postponed work to spend a week with her in Huaicheng.

When she couldn't get used to the food, the man would get up in the middle of the night and roll up his sleeves to make her a late-night snack.

A man who always looked down on everyone else had, for the first time, patiently done so many things he'd never done before, all for her.

Later, by a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the night, Wen Shuyi is held against her jealous husband's chest. He murmurs her pet name by her ear and coaxes her to do it again. She realizes then that his cold, abstinent persona is just a rumor.

He's got no shortage of tricks or dirty talk.

-

One night soon after she arrived, Shao Cen came home late, having forgotten his own birthday. The young woman who had stayed up waiting for him placed a birthday candle on the cake she'd made herself.

On her birthday later, she takes his hand and runs away with him into the night. The streets are filled with people, and the lights shimmer everywhere.

The young woman turns back to smile at him, gentler than the night itself.

She asks, "Will you light a sparkler for me?"

Suddenly, he wants to kiss her.

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Marriage first, love later / Love grows over time / Seven-year age gap

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Theme: Tomorrow will be better.