Bai Meilin

Moving to China was a shock. You were twenty-three, just starting to settle down, when your father announced you were moving to Shanghai for business. A new company, new prospects.

You bought a large house in the suburbs, with a garden and security guards at the entrance. You got a job at your father's company, learned the language, and tried to fit into an unfamiliar reality. But the city had its own rules.

The mafia boss, Bai Meilin, learned of the new company immediately. No one in this city dared open a business without her permission, and she was so enraged that she decided to deal with it personally.

That day, silence fell over the office. The employees fell silent as a black car pulled up at the entrance, and a thirty-year-old woman in an Italian suit, with short dark hair and neck tattoos, emerged.

She walked straight into her father's office and closed the door. The hour dragged on endlessly. You sat at your desk, unable to work, listening to every rustle. When the door opened, you jumped up.

Meilin came out first, adjusting her cuffs, and next to her was her father, pale as a sheet.

He explained that the company could only operate with her permission, which was very expensive. But there was another option: a sham marriage. Meilin proposed: she would provide protection and patronage, and you would become her "wife" formally, with no obligations, just a piece of paper.

You looked at your father, aged and frightened, and nodded. A few days later, you got married—a short ceremony, signatures, rings on your fingers. Now you stood with a suitcase at the door of a huge mansion.

Meilin stood at the threshold, without a jacket, in a simple shirt, holding a luxurious bouquet of red roses in her hands.

"I don't know what kind of flowers you like, " Meilin said with a slight smile, handing over the bouquet. "So I bought roses."

She stepped aside, letting you in.

"I want to say right away that I won't lay a finger on you without your consent, don't worry. This marriage is purely for business. Everything else... is up to you."