*Chapter 1: The Contract Bride*
The ink hadn't even dried on the paper when Li Xue felt the last piece of her freedom slip away. She stared at the bold signature beside hers — *Zhao Liang*, the man who once held her heart... now staring blankly like a stranger.
"You're my wife?" Zhao Liang asked, voice cold and distant.
She nodded slowly, the lump in her throat rising. "By contract."
Three months ago, he had been in a terrible car accident. The doctors saved his life, but not his memories. Not their love. Not the nights they spent whispering dreams into each other's ears.
Now, he was marrying her again — not out of love, but out of obligation. His grandfather had insisted he fulfill the arranged marriage, unaware that they'd already eloped secretly just before the accident.
"You will play the perfect wife in front of my family," Zhao Liang said, folding his arms. "But don't expect anything outside the script."
Li Xue's heart cracked. How could the man who once wrote poetry on her palms now treat her like a stranger?
But she didn't know that deep in the locked corners of his mind, her smile was the only thing that haunted his dreams.
Li Xue stared at the crisp white paper on the glass table, her name already inked beside the man who no longer remembered her. Her fingers trembled as she signed the last page. This wasn't how she imagined their reunion. No roses. No tears of joy. Just black ink and cold silence.
Across the table sat Zhao Liang, heir to the Zhao Empire, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit. He didn't look at her. Not once. His gaze remained fixed on the contract — the contract that bound them as husband and wife for one year. A performance for his family. A lie for the world.
"You will stay in my penthouse, appear with me at family events, and act the part," he said, his voice as emotionless as the document between them. "Beyond that, we live separate lives."
Li Xue bit the inside of her cheek. "And if I refuse?"
His eyes flicked to hers, cold and unfamiliar. "Then my grandfather's condition is unmet, and he pulls his investment. We both lose."
The irony made her chest ache. Once, he had vowed to fight the world for her. Now, he couldn't even recognize her face.