Sang Nian has loved Zhou Yuli for ten years from the far corner of every room, through high school and university, never once close enough to be noticed. When her parents push her into an arranged meeting, the man across the table is Zhou Yuli himself. He proposes they marry at once. She says yes, and lets the whispers about substitutes and social climbing land where they will. Three years of courteous, careful marriage follow, her feelings kept where he cannot see them — until his first love comes home divorced.