Courting Marriage [Marriage Before Love]

Childhood sweethearts x love after marriage | Steady, refined older man x gentle, calculating young woman

Ever since she came to live with the Ling family at fourteen, Su Tang has known just how far apart she and Ling Huang are.

Ling Huang is the heir to the wealthy Ling family of Kyoto. He is a master strategist, disciplined and proper, with a cold, resolute gaze and a tiny red beauty mark that has half the city's heiresses and socialites chasing after him.

She is his younger brother's fiancee, destined to bury her feelings deep inside.

But later, when her fiance calls off their engagement, she is left the target of everyone's scorn at the venue. As she tries to escape, he slowly descends the stairs, extinguishes the bright red cigarette in his hand, and speaks nonchalantly.

"My younger brother has behaved poorly, and as his big brother, I'm partly responsible. If you don't mind, we can go ahead with the wedding, only you'll marry me instead." Everyone is green with envy, but she hurriedly pulls down her veil, avoiding his inscrutable gaze.

Every night after their wedding, the sheets are rumpled, then smoothed, then rumpled again. She often ends up limp on the bed, sweat beading on her forehead, while he gets up and stands alone on the terrace, gazing at the distant lights, too cold to spare her another word.

She finally hands him divorce papers and disappears into the vast sea of people.

Later, rumors spread that the heir apparent to the Ling Group has lost control at a shareholders' meeting, vanished at an international airport, and is now located in Lhasa.

Atop a remote, uninhabited snowy mountain, the man braves the biting wind and pushes open a red wooden door. He spots men's leather shoes at the entrance. Without even brushing the snow from his shoulders, he rushes into the room and grits out:

"Mrs. Ling, it's been three months. I hope you've been well."

"Just leave the divorce papers on the table." She coolly flips through the latest men's fashion magazine.

A snowstorm swirls in his icy eyes. He snatches the magazine, tears it up, and flings the pieces into the air. "What papers? I've never seen them."

"You're shameless," she scolds.

"I'm also downright despicable. Want to see for yourself?" He steps closer, looking at the hem of her skirt, and raises his brows smugly. Her face flushes with anger. She lifts a hand to slap him, but he catches it easily and leans close to her ear, his voice low and hoarse with longing.

"Don't think I don't know that you called off the engagement on purpose."

Warnings: Both leads are inexperienced and the ending is happy. They are five years apart, and neither lead is a good person. The male lead is allergic to pollen and is also a complete lunatic. The female lead has very little sense of morality.

Old-school, melodramatic, and Mary Sue-esque.

The man is unmarried and the woman is unattached. A fake eldest-brother-in-law romance, with an adoption trope. They are not related by blood, do not share a household registration, and had no intimacy while she was a minor.

Theme: Love should be honest