First Meeting

Gu Zhi sipped at her lemonade and watched the crowd bustling around her. The cafe was filled with murmurs of the moving crowd. It was approaching noon and many office workers from the surrounding building were rushing in for lunch and a much-needed break from their jobs. The bell above the door to the cafe rang once more, announcing yet another arrival, but this time the person who walked in was a familiar face. 

The man, cold and composed, walked in with confident strides and looked around the cafe crowd. Gu Zhi took a moment to look him over. He was tall, well built with a graceful and mature charm, clad in a dark blue shirt and a pair of dark pants. He looked just about as she had expected after listening to the Lin family's description.

Gu Zhi raised her hand to catch his attention and the man paused in his perusal and walked towards her table. Gu Zhi rose from her seat and bowed in greeting as he stood before her. "Hello, Mr. Su."

The man took a moment to look at her. He must have been surprised, after all, it isn't always you meet your new fiance on the day of your wedding.

 "Hello, Miss Gu. Please take a seat." He calmly dragged the chair in front of her and took a seat. Gu Zhi sat back down and, for a moment, they sat in a stilled, if somewhat awkward silence. Unable to bear with the quiet any longer, Gu Zhi took a deep calming breath and decided to speak first.

"Thank you for accepting my request for this meeting. I am sure it must have come as a surprise to you."

"It did surprise me to receive that call but I am also curious as to what made you reach out." His tone was polite, if distant, making her relax and say the words she had practised for the past hour sitting in this cafe.

"I know you had a wedding agreement with the Lin family and that it was Lin Shen you were supposed to wed today. As you might have already heard, it was found that Lin Shen is not actually Lin family's daughter. She was switched at birth due to the hospital's carelessness. It was revealed after an accident, during her visit to the hospital, that she couldn't be her parents' daughter. She succeeded in tracking down her biological parents and came to find them a month ago. Her truth also revealed the lie of my life. I am not my parents' real daughter. Lin Shen is. I am the real Lin family's child." Gu Zhi paused after uttering those words. She had constantly been hearing them for the past month but it was only at this moment, when she uttered them herself, that the crushing reality of her crumbling life seemed to dawn on her. 

Su Chen looked at the young girl in front of him. From what he heard the Gu family was a well-respected military family and so when Lin Shen, his former fiance found out that they were her biological parents, she didn't hesitate to reach out and ask to be accepted into the household. She hadn't let anyone find out about her intentions until she ensured she could live with the Gu family. By the time the Lin family came to find out about the whole ordeal of switched children, the Gu family was ready to accept Lin Shen and make up for the lost years with their real daughter. 

Su Chen had been astonished at the revelations which sounded dramatic enough to be the plot of a drama, unfolding before him. He had met Lin Shen a few times before she asked to marry him and knew that she was a smart and opportunistic woman. Su Chen was twenty-eight years old with three children to look after. He had lived in the city with a good job but had returned to the countryside after his sister's death to take care of her children and farm. The only reason the village belle would consider someone like him for marriage instead of the countless young suitors in the village and town nearby was because he had relatively more money than any of them and could provide her with a comfortable life. So Su Chen was not really surprised at her decision to discard their wedding arrangements in light of her new discoveries. But he had wondered about the young lady of the Gu family and how she was faring after Lin Shen's arrival.

Looking at the woman in front of him, Su Chen knew he was correct in his assumptions, that it must have been difficult to have your entire life usurped in such a short time. She was the same age as Lin Shen, twenty one, but looked so different. It was clear from a glance at her graceful and dignified presence that she was raised in a cultured and sophisticated household. It almost hid the fatigue and gloom hanging over her.

"Well, the Lin family wants me to return and fulfil their promise to you and go ahead with the business cooperation that was proposed with the wedding. And" Gu Zhi cleared her throat and uttered the next words with some strain, "the Gu family also wants the same. So I propose that you go ahead with your cooperation with the Lin family and allow me to marry you instead."