Love at First Sight

● Longtime unrequited love from the heroine, marriage first and love later from the hero's perspective

● Frail, sickly beauty x fake tough guy, real hopeless romantic :)

In elite circles, everyone knew that the eldest son of the Shi family, Shi Jinyan, had been born with a silver spoon and was impossible to manage. Ever since he was injured racing cars and ordered back to China by his grandfather, his temperament had grown even more unruly. He left the family's vast business to its own devices and instead opened a bar, spending every day hanging out with his equally feckless friends. He was a rebellious, unruly troublemaker.

Nobody expected that even this young master would be unable to escape a family-arranged marriage. He was to marry the eldest daughter of the Shen family, a sickly girl whose title was all for show.

Shen Junrao had been sickly since birth. Her mother died when she was young, and her father remarried, leaving her to scrape by cautiously in the Shen household from a very young age.

Everyone knew her status was only nominal, and that she and Shi Jinyan were worlds apart. People sighed over her misfortune. The Shen family had pushed her forward to curry favor with the Shi family, and with this young master as her husband, her life would surely become even more difficult.

They didn't know that Shen Junrao had fought for this marriage herself, even though nobody believed it would work.

She had been soft-hearted and easy to bully for twenty years. Marrying Shi Jinyan took all the courage she had been gathering for so long. More than that... she wanted to put an end to her years of unrequited love.

This much-criticized marriage was only meant to last a year.

After that, they would go their separate ways.

From the very beginning, Shi Jinyan had plainly stated that this marriage would be about mutual benefit, and that there could be no feelings involved.

Shen Junrao kept his words firmly in mind, afraid to disrupt the only year they had together, yet unable to rein in her insatiable longing.

She knew that Shi Jinyan treated her well, but he would never love her.

But the one who had said those words was Shi Jinyan, and he was also the one who took them back.

-

When their marriage was halfway through, Shen Junrao's frail body gradually improved until she could live a normal life, and she chose to return to school.

At the time, she thought there was no future for her and Shi Jinyan. The remaining six months would be a marriage in name only. Unexpectedly, everything began to change quietly. The one drawing close and following her around was gradually becoming him.

He was the one who moved in with her first.

He was the one who got jealous and sulked.

And when she fell ill, he was still the one who stayed by her side and cared for her every moment.

One day.

Shi Jinyan barged into the Shen family home as brazenly as ever, making a scene without regard for anyone, all to protect Shen Junrao. Later, he set aside all his aggression and kowtowed three times, nine times, before Shen Junrao's mother's grave.

Only then did the onlookers realize that this relationship was not what they had imagined.

The fearsome young master who answered to nobody had found a weakness and fallen in love for real.

Later, night after night,

Shen Junrao could never withstand his passionate attentions. Her eyes glistening red, she would whimper his name in a trembling, soft voice.

Only then did she realize how exhausting it was to be a husband and wife in more than name.

#Love at first sight, and still heartbeats after all this time#

Blurb written on December 6, 2023.

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