Contract Marriage: Billionaire and His Deaf Wife

"Zicong is getting married,"

The cool summer sunlight streamed through the dark café windows, turning the light hazy and chaotic, making one feel as if in a dream.

Nowadays, a divorce is nothing special, and even less so are unmarried couples suddenly turning against each other. Yet, Gu Nuan had never imagined such a thing happening between her and Wa Zicong.

Since middle school, they were classmates, their seats only one row apart, so falling in love over time was expected. Later, fate continued its role, propelling them to the same high school under direct academic recommendations, and eventually to the same university after they tested and got accepted. She studied finance, he learned investment strategies—both in the finance department. Coming from a small town, both of their families were of modest means. In other words, she and Wa Zicong were a good match in terms of family backgrounds.

But it was this very match in backgrounds that received a harsh blow.

Water flows down to the low places, people strive to climb up.

No one can tolerate humiliation, nor can anyone resist temptation.

No wonder, half a year ago, when Wa Zicong got drunk once, he squinted at her and said, "Gu Nuan, you are good in all aspects but lack one thing."

Now, she understood everything—he was not speaking drunken words that day.

She lacked money, lacked wealthy parents.

For people like them at the bottom, the quickest shortcut to climbing up is to latch onto a big tree. Without substantial initial capital, how can wealth be quickly generated? Just like the stock market, where retail investors are always the ones being harvested, only wealthy people, regardless of the crises they face, thanks to the diversification of their wealth, won't face devastation due to a sudden crisis.

Tragedies occur much more frequently among the poor than the wealthy.

Otherwise, why would so many people love money?

Money can make a ghost grind the mill.

Not unexpectedly, having money allowed Wa Zicong and his mother to change their affections and abandon her, Gu Nuan, for a future filled with monetary prospects.

Gu Nuan, who studied finance, was thoroughly versed in the principles of economics. However, she always thought that feelings could not be measured with money. Was she too naïve?

It turns out, Wa Zicong believed that choosing a potential stock was not as good as directly selecting a blue-chip stock.

The middle-aged woman sitting opposite her was supposed to be her future mother-in-law.

Gu Nuan remembered this woman, whom she referred to as Mother Wa, was Wa Zicong's mother, originally named Liu Xiangyi, and sometimes Gu Nuan also called her Aunt Liu. But Mother Wa always insisted that she just call her "Mom."

In the past, Aunt Liu's warmth toward her, treating her almost like her own daughter, had indeed made Gu Nuan's heart warm. At that time, she truly believed she would marry into a good family.

Thinking back now, Mother Wa merely thought that she came from a modest background, like a "small family's precious jade," not quite matching the rich, but comparably a bit better off than the Wa Family economically.

Gu Nuan once thought this future mother-in-law was decent. It seemed because both families were ordinary civilians, primarily needing to economize on all household expenses.

Before this, Mother Wa had always complained that the coffee shop they now sat in was too luxurious and expensive.

Gu Nuan still vividly remembered a saying by Mother Wa, "A hundred bucks for a cup of coffee might as well be spent on drinking plain water."

Yet now, the person who asked her to meet here was Mother Wa.

"Ten million. She gave Zicong a startup fund of ten million,"

The 'she' Mother Wa mentioned was the wealthy girl engaged to her boyfriend, Wa Zicong.