Summary
Qiao Anhao has spent so long pretending that her feelings no longer matter that the habit becomes second nature.
By the time she enters the entertainment industry, she is already used to keeping certain thoughts to herself. Auditions come and go, small roles barely pay the bills, and every opportunity feels like it could disappear overnight. Compared to those worries, a long-standing crush from years ago should probably be the least of her concerns.
The problem is that the person in question never really leaves her life.
Lu Jinnian is everywhere.
His face appears on billboards, television screens, and entertainment headlines. While Qiao Anhao is still trying to establish herself, he has already become one of the most recognizable figures in the industry. To outsiders, he seems distant, confident, and completely out of reach.
Which makes their situation rather awkward.
For reasons known only to the two of them, they are already married.
Not the sort of marriage anyone celebrates, and certainly not one the public knows about. Most of the time they barely seem capable of holding a normal conversation. Years of misunderstandings, assumptions, and things left unsaid have created a gap neither of them quite knows how to cross.
Qiao Anhao often feels as though she is trying to solve a puzzle without having all the pieces.
The more she learns about Lu Jinnian, the less certain she becomes about the version of him she carried in her memories. Small details do not add up. Certain actions contradict old assumptions. Even events she thought she understood begin to look different when viewed from another angle.
Meanwhile, their careers keep pushing them back into each other’s lives.
Film sets, interviews, industry events, and chance encounters make avoiding one another nearly impossible. Sometimes they seem closer than ever. Other times they are separated by the same silence that has followed them for years.
The strange part is that neither of them has truly walked away.
After all this time, the question is no longer whether feelings still exist.
It is whether two people who spent years misunderstanding each other can finally stop guessing and start listening.