Contractual Marriage

Contractual Marriage is the formal and emotional framework governing Shen Tang and Gu Huaian’s early relationship. It begins as an arrangement that allows Shen Tang, a scandal-plagued Z-list celebrity preparing to leave the entertainment industry, to treat marriage as a temporary bargain rather than a romantic commitment. Yet the arrangement becomes the central contradiction of their shared life: its rules insist that the relationship is limited and terminable, while daily care, public exposure, and growing attachment steadily make that limitation harder to believe.

Definition and Practical Framework

The relationship is explicitly understood as contractual rather than romantic. When Shen Tang believes Gu Huaian’s White Moonlight may have returned, she assumes that the official partner will displace her and that the marriage might end ahead of schedule. She therefore thinks about preparing to move out and obtaining additional compensation for an early termination. Her reasoning treats the marriage as a transaction with calculable terms: residence, duration, compensation, and an eventual separation are all more intelligible to her than the possibility that Gu Huaian may value her personally.

The arrangement also exists within a wider institutional structure. Shen Tang’s entertainment company regards her rash marriage as a professional decision that should have been discussed in advance, and the company warns that ending her employment contract early could cost approximately eight million. This financial pressure makes the marriage inseparable from her precarious livelihood. Even when Shen Tang wants to retire, she cannot simply leave; the logic of contracts follows her from the entertainment workplace into her private life.

Shen Tang’s Defensive Interpretation

Shen Tang repeatedly reminds herself that the marriage is contractual, using the phrase as a psychological barrier against feelings that have begun to exceed the agreement. She recognizes that Gu Huaian has recently treated her well and that his care gives her something profoundly familiar and desirable: both of her lifetimes have left her an orphan, and she has longed for the feeling of being looked after. Rather than accept this attachment as love, however, she attributes it to emotional deprivation and inexperience, telling herself that she has encountered too few men.

Her fear of public attention reinforces the same defensive logic. Shen Tang has become accustomed to appearing in online controversies, even though she is tired of always trending. She worries that a future divorce and a later partner would invite comparisons from netizens, making the consequences of the contractual marriage extend beyond the household and into her public identity. The relationship is therefore both private shelter and media liability: it offers care, but it also creates another possible scandal for a woman whose company has already paired her with numerous male celebrities to exploit publicity.

Gu Huaian’s Rejection of the Premise

Gu Huaian does not share Shen Tang’s assumption that the marriage is merely an interchangeable arrangement. When she tries to explain that she has no ulterior motive and would step aside if the White Moonlight returned, he reacts with visible displeasure. Her language of imitation, replacement, moving out, and compensation reduces a relationship he experiences as significant to a temporary commercial substitute. The conflict arises not from a new external rival alone, but from the mismatch between Shen Tang’s protective calculations and Gu Huaian’s unwillingness to accept their implications.

His position becomes unmistakable when Shen Tang attempts to describe their status as merely contractual. Gu Huaian interrupts the formulation by firmly stating that he does not like the other woman. The declaration directly removes the romantic threat that Shen Tang has used to keep emotional distance, but it does not immediately make her trust the marriage as a love relationship. Instead, the contractual label remains a shield that allows her to receive care while denying its emotional meaning.

Marriage within Public and Institutional Life

The arrangement develops under constant observation. Shen Tang’s company has made scandal a business strategy, and her public image is defined by rumors and repeated online attention. She consequently performs composure as part of her work: during a livestream filled with hostile comments, she maintains a professional smile while black fans increase the room’s popularity. The stream’s commercial purpose is to help farmers sell agricultural products from remote mountainous regions, and Shen Tang expects to earn substantial money through the company’s revenue split. Her marriage likewise exists inside a world where appearances, publicity, and financial return continually shape personal choices.

The same pattern appears in other institutional settings. A tightly managed production crew forbids news leaks and usually prohibits mobile-phone use during filming, while a successful farming variety show becomes a ratings leader after Shen Tang provides funding and leaves Luo Chen broad authority. In public confrontations, her security detail protects her, yet police take everyone to the station and keep Shen Tang’s side awake for questioning despite their apparent status as victims. These episodes clarify the conditions surrounding the marriage: Shen Tang and Gu Huaian do not inhabit a private romantic sphere protected from institutions. Their relationship is repeatedly tested by companies, media platforms, production rules, money, police procedure, and public interpretation.

Narrative Significance and Development

Contractual Marriage supplies the story’s main romance engine by creating a sustained gap between legal or practical status and emotional reality. Shen Tang treats the relationship as something with an expiry date, while Gu Huaian’s care and jealousy make the supposed boundary increasingly unstable. The arrangement allows proximity before either partner can openly claim intimacy, turning ordinary acts of protection and concern into evidence that the contract no longer explains everything.

Its importance also lies in the way it connects romance to survival. Shen Tang enters the relationship from a position shaped by orphanhood, scandal, financial pressure, and the desire to improve her siblings’ living conditions. The contract promises structure without requiring vulnerability, but the structure cannot prevent attachment. By the time the marriage has become embedded in their shared public and private routines, the original distinction between contractual duty and genuine concern has become the relationship’s defining tension rather than a settled answer.