The first snowfall of the year arrived on Christmas Eve.
At midnight, Ye Ran received a text from Gu Mochi:
*[Ye Ran, let's get married.]*
Her palm grew slightly warm against the phone, yet a chill settled in her chest.
She hesitated for several minutes before dialing his number.
Just as she expected, it was Gu Mochi’s assistant who answered.
"Hello, Ms. Ye. Mr. Gu, he’s… he’s at—" The assistant faltered.
Ye Ran’s brows knitted slightly. "Where?"
"Night Peacock. VIP room on the third floor."
"Got it. I’ll be there soon."
She rose, washed up, and changed. Before leaving, she pulled open a drawer and retrieved a medicine bottle.
Swallowing a pill with a sip of lukewarm water, she then headed downstairs to her car.
She had caught a severe cold earlier that autumn, and the lingering cough still hadn’t fully subsided.
Half an hour later, Ye Ran arrived at Night Peacock—Xuan City’s most extravagant entertainment venue.
In the private room, Gu Mochi was already dead drunk, completely unconscious.
The assistant spotted Ye Ran and hurried over with an apologetic look.
"Ms. Ye, you're here? Mr. Gu drank way too much—I couldn’t stop him."
Ye Ran nodded. "Thanks for your effort. You can head back now."
She stepped forward and crouched beside Gu Mochi, her hand hovering hesitantly in the air before she finally withdrew it.
The spacious room felt hollow and desolate.
Ye Ran knew—the person he was waiting for was never her.
Seven years ago, on Christmas Eve.
Wen Qi had stood at the entrance of Xuan City International Airport, telling Gu Mochi, *Wait for me for seven years.*
The clock struck midnight. Seven years had passed.
Yet Wen Qi never showed up.
Ye Ran lowered her gaze to the phone clutched tightly in Gu Mochi’s hand.
The screen still displayed the text he had just sent her.
That *marry me*—it must have been nothing but a spur-of-the-moment outburst.
With a bitter smile, she shook her head.
Good thing she knew better than to take it seriously.
Ye Ran brought Gu Mochi back to her apartment.
She wiped him down, changed his clothes, and cleaned up the mess from his drunken vomiting. By the time she finished, dawn was already breaking. Exhausted, she curled up on the sofa and dozed off for a short while.
When she opened her eyes again, sunlight flooded the room. Gu Mochi stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, dressed in the clean shirt she had prepared for him.
Ye Ran’s home always kept spare clothes for Gu Mochi—along with towels, bathrobes, slippers, and even his preferred toiletries.
He attended countless social engagements, yet his tolerance for alcohol was poor. Every time he blacked out, his assistant would call Ye Ran to come retrieve him.
She worried about his health, hating to see him drunk so often. Yet, her longing to see him, to keep him close, had become the most bittersweet contradiction buried deep in her heart all these years.
"You're up?" Ye Ran sat up on the sofa, rubbing her eyes as she spoke to Gu Mochi’s back.
"Yeah."
He didn’t turn around, only his shoulders shifting slightly.
"Did you pick me up last night?"
Ye Ran nodded. "You've had too much to drink. Oh, right—"
She hopped off the couch and headed toward the kitchen.
"I made some hangover soup. Let me get you a bowl."
But before she could take another step, Gu Mochi reached out and grabbed her wrist, his grip firm.
"Don't bother. Go get ready and change your clothes."
His gaze was deep, his expression unusually serious.
Ye Ran blinked in confusion, her wide eyes fixed on him.
"Change clothes?"
"You're not planning to wear pajamas to the marriage registry, are you?"
Gu Mochi frowned slightly.
"Mochi, what… what did you just say?"
Ye Ran could hardly believe her ears.
He wanted to go register their marriage with her?
Last night, drunk and out of his mind, he had proposed on impulse—she hadn’t taken it seriously at all!
"You thought I’d forgotten?"
Ye Yan stood frozen in place, her limbs locked in hesitation.
Gu Mochi's expression darkened with impatience. "I mean every word, Ye Yan," he said, his voice cutting through the tense silence.
"But..." Her teeth sank into her lower lip as her fingers twisted the hem of her shirt, damp with nervous sweat.
"But I don't love you?" Gu Mochi took a deep breath, meeting her gaze without flinching. "What does it matter? I don't love you, and you don't love me either. Wen Qi's gone abroad, and so has Li Mingyu. Since neither of us can be with the person we truly want, why not settle for someone we've known for years? At least we understand each other. Doesn't that make sense?"
Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and strode toward the doorway. "Pack your things. I'll wait for you downstairs."
As his retreating figure disappeared from view, Ye Yan's eyes welled up with unshed tears.
Li Mingyu? That was nothing but a ridiculous misunderstanding—just an upperclassman who had pursued her in college before giving up and leaving the country. She had never loved Li Mingyu, not for a single moment. Her heart had always belonged to one man, and one man only.
Gu Mochi.
It had always been him.
Inside the Civil Affairs Bureau...
"Congratulations to both of you. Starting today, you are legally married. May you have a blissful life together."
The clerk handed them a pair of crimson marriage certificates, her face lit with genuine warmth.
Ye Ran cradled the documents carefully against her chest, her heart burning with an indescribable heat.
Truth be told, her mind was still in a daze.
Was this really marriage?
Just a signature, a photo, and the whole process took mere minutes.
And just like that, she had become Gu Mochi’s wife?
"I’ll have Ah Bin help you pack your things. You can move in with me tonight."
Gu Mochi held the car door open for her, motioning for her to get in.
"Alright. Should we buy some new bedding?"
"Do as you see fit."
He started the engine with an air of indifference, then paused before adding, "I’ll be sleeping in the guest room. Don’t worry about me."
Ye Ran’s heart lurched violently—like a rollercoaster soaring to its peak before plummeting, leaving her breathless.
Gu Mochi glanced at her briefly, his gaze barely skimming her face.
"Ye Ran, Grandpa is getting old. He wants to see me settled down. Our marriage is just to give him peace of mind. But that’s all it is."
"I understand."
Ye Ran froze for a moment before turning her head toward the window.
A strong gust of wind blew just then. She rubbed her eyes, but the tears betrayed her, spilling down her cheeks anyway.
He had married her—yet refused to touch her.
The reason? Unspoken, but painfully clear.
The phone rang—Gu Mochi’s.
Focused on driving, he motioned for Ye Ran to answer it for him.
"You little brat, get your ass back here now!"
Old Master Gu’s roar nearly deafened Ye Ran.
And just like that, the car that was supposed to head to the office made a detour straight to the Gu family estate.
"On your knees!"
Gu Mochi, the eldest grandson of the Gu family, had stood up a business partner on a multi-billion-dollar deal—all because he was too lovesick to function on Christmas Eve?
The moment Gu Yefang got wind of the news, his fury knew no bounds.
"You ungrateful wretch! Are you still a child?! Moping over some woman like this—how can I ever trust you with the family business?!"
Gu Mochi knelt in the center of the ancestral hall. His face was expressionless, but his back remained rigidly straight.
"If Grandfather doesn’t trust me, then take over the company yourself. Or find someone else to run things—it’s not like I’m the only Gu in this family."
Ye Ran knew all too well that Gu Mochi’s resentment toward his grandfather had never faded with time.
After all, if the old man hadn’t looked down on Wen Qi back then, their love story might not have been so fraught with hardship.