Substitute Marriage

The Zhou family arranged a marriage between their heir, Zhou Wangjin, and the elder daughter of another household to seal a business alliance. The elder sister refused to go through with it. Her younger sister, Lin Xuqiu, was sent to marry him instead. The wedding made them husband and wife on paper. Inside the house they kept apart, ate at separate times, and rarely spoke. Lin Xuqiu took an internship at a magazine. Her first assignment was an interview with a young corporate heir who turned out to be Zhou Wangjin. She tried to get out of it, then went through with it while introducing herself to colleagues as unmarried. Word of the interview got back to him, and he asked her directly why she had called herself single. He started showing up at her office and at events she attended, telling people she belonged to him. She kept trying to keep the marriage and the job in separate boxes. He kept breaking that arrangement, showing up where she worked, checking who she talked to, asking about the men on her assignments. Under the arguments the two of them started noticing each other, in the kitchen at night, in the car on the way to interviews, in the moments neither of them planned for.