Two-Year Contract Marriage Arrangement

The Two-Year Contract Marriage Arrangement is the governing rule that initially frames Shen Tang and Gu Huaian’s relationship as a temporary, transactional union rather than a permanent marriage. Its two-year duration gives the arrangement a clear endpoint, makes an early separation conceivable, and creates the central tension between the legal or practical marriage they have accepted and the deeper attachment developing beneath it.

Definition and Practical Purpose

The arrangement allows Shen Tang to remain in the changed fictional world while preserving the possibility of leaving with substantial financial compensation after fulfilling the two-year term. When she considers whether to return to her original world, she reasons that she should logically go back, yet the money available in this world is more than she could earn in an entire lifetime there. Because the plot has already diverged from its former course, she believes that properly staying for two years will allow her to leave with the money promised by the arrangement.

This calculation shows that Shen Tang initially understands the marriage primarily through material and contractual logic. Gu Huaian is, in her estimation, an exceptionally desirable man, but the arrangement still places him on the side of something she can observe rather than truly possess. Her regret at that limitation does not erase the boundary she believes the contract establishes: she is willing to complete the term, collect the financial benefit, and eventually move on.

The Early-Termination Anxiety

The arrangement becomes especially visible when Shen Tang hears that Gu Huaian’s White Moonlight may have returned. She explains that, if the original person has come back, the imitation should make way, and she begins preparing for the possibility that the contractual marriage will end ahead of schedule. She also assumes that an early ending should bring additional compensation, revealing how quickly she translates an emotional threat into a financial and logistical problem.

Gu Huaian reacts with immediate displeasure to this explanation. His response makes clear that Shen Tang’s interpretation of the arrangement is not shared by him, at least not emotionally: her readiness to pack up, claim compensation, and vacate the relationship sounds to him like proof that she has already placed herself outside it. The contract therefore functions as a source of dramatic asymmetry. Shen Tang treats its terms as protection against uncertainty, while Gu Huaian experiences her reliance on those terms as distance and rejection.

Contractual Distance and Emotional Consequences

The temporary nature of the marriage also governs Shen Tang’s expectations about public attention. She is exhausted by the constant scandals and trending searches surrounding her and does not want the marriage to become another spectacle. Although other people might wish to trend, she feels that excessive visibility produces public fatigue, and she worries that the relationship will later be judged as a completed contract rather than a lasting union.

Her forward planning extends beyond the current marriage. She considers that, if the contract ends and she eventually finds another partner, online comparisons between Gu Huaian and that future partner could become embarrassing or damaging. The thought is practical from her perspective, but it also exposes how completely she assumes the relationship has an expiration date. Gu Huaian, still standing in the role of her current partner, is forced to confront her imagined future without him, and his darkened expression reflects the emotional cost of a rule Shen Tang believes is merely being followed.

The same contractual framing appears when Shen Tang attempts to explain the situation to Gu Huaian’s family. She begins to say that they are only contractually connected, but Gu Huaian firmly interrupts her by stating that he does not like the woman being discussed. His insistence separates the formal arrangement from his personal feelings, even as Shen Tang continues to use the contract as the safest language for describing their bond.

Marriage, Family, and an Uncertain Future

The arrangement does not remain confined to private negotiations between the couple. Within Gu Family gatherings, Old Madam Gu’s warm attitude toward Shen Tang influences how other relatives regard her. Her introduction to important elders gives Shen Tang social recognition inside the family, even though the marriage began as a temporary agreement. The family’s acceptance thus creates a contrast between contractual status and lived belonging: the arrangement may have an end date, but its consequences extend into kinship and public identity.

Later, the question of a wedding exposes another limitation of the arrangement. When Shen Tang is asked when she and Gu Huaian plan to hold one, she cannot provide an answer. She had once imagined walking down the aisle with someone she loved, but after transmigrating she married directly and skipped that experience. The uncertainty over whether she will ever have a wedding suggests that the two-year arrangement has supplied a marriage without resolving what marriage means to her emotionally or ceremonially.

Narrative Significance

As a rule, the Two-Year Contract Marriage Arrangement converts romance into a countdown. Every possibility of separation can be justified by its terms, while every sign of attachment threatens the emotional distance those terms were meant to preserve. Shen Tang’s fixation on money, compensation, publicity, and a future partner repeatedly demonstrates her defensive interpretation of the agreement; Gu Huaian’s irritation demonstrates that the relationship has begun to exceed the arrangement even before Shen Tang is prepared to acknowledge it.

The rule also links the romance to the novel’s larger themes of altered fate and self-protection. Shen Tang remains because the revised plot offers a chance to complete the two-year period and secure a transformed economic future, yet remaining also places her in a relationship that increasingly resists being treated as a simple exchange. The arrangement’s decisive function is therefore paradoxical: it gives the couple a formal reason to stay together while constantly reminding them that staying together may not be permanent.