When my assistant, Hina, came to pick me up, she blinked in surprise. “Ranran, why do you have your hair down today? Where’s your favorite pink strawberry hair tie?”

I forced a tight smile. That strawberry hair tie was currently wrapped around Jiang Yufan’s cool, pale wrist.

He had reasoned so casually: “Since my prayer beads are with you, shouldn’t my lady leave me a token as well?”

With that, he had effortlessly slipped the girly pink accessory onto his arm, even idly flicking the tiny resin strawberry with a look of quiet satisfaction.

Things moved fast after that. I officially transferred to Jiang Media, the undisputed heavy hitter of the entertainment industry. They handed me an S-tier contract on a silver platter and assigned me to a legendary talent manager: Qin Yun.

“There’s nothing wrong with playing the sultry siren, but you can’t ride that wave forever,” Sister Yun evaluated crisply, looking over my profile. “Have you ever thought about taking on leading roles?”

I nodded without a second thought. “I’ll follow your lead.”

Looking at the detailed career plan in my hands, I knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Over the past three years, I had refused to rely on the Jiang family out of pride, not wanting to owe them. But now, I genuinely wanted to use my own talent to go further. It was time to shed the “temptress” label once and for all and climb straight to the top!

After an intense week of acting boot camp, I officially landed my very first female lead role. For the first time in forever, it felt like my life was finally turning a dazzling new page.

I had Hina drive me to the hospital to visit my mother. She had lost a lot of weight, but her spirits were high. We chattered away like chatterboxes, and I even jokingly promised to pop out an entire “soccer team” of grandchildren just to keep her busy.

Yet deep down, a heavy knot tightened in my chest. We still hadn’t found a matching kidney donor.

Stepping out of her hospital room, I sank onto a bench in the hallway, completely drained. My fingers wrapped tightly around Jiang Yufan’s prayer beads. “Will you… bless us?” I whispered silently.

The moment I turned my head, I bumped right into the man himself.

Jiang Yufan stood there, impeccably tailored in a sharp suit, but utterly ruined by the bright pink strawberry hair tie sitting wildly out of place on his wrist.

Without a word, he handed me a thick file.

I opened it—it was a organ donor compatibility report!

“Is this real? You found a match? Already?!” I stammered, my voice shaking.

He looked down at me, his deep voice carrying a quiet warmth. “When one’s heart is pure and devout, everything in the world becomes a sanctuary. Including me. My lady… leave everything to me.”

I froze, completely stunned.

A rare flicker of self-consciousness crossed his face, and he awkwardly toyed with the little plastic strawberry on his wrist. “The prayer beads… you keep them. Consider it a fair exchange of tokens.”

Driven by a sudden, hot burst of emotion, I rummaged through my bag, pulled out another hair tie—this one adorned with a small red heart—and slipped it right next to the strawberry on his arm.

“Here, one more. Can’t have you taking a loss.”

Jiang Yufan paused, then let out a low, breathless laugh. “Then I express my deepest gratitude, my lady.”

From that day on, every time he visited the hospital, he merely stood outside the room, watching quietly through the door window. He was like a deity descending into the mortal realm, bestowing grace upon the world without asking for anything in return.

The day of my mother’s surgery finally arrived.

Pacing the hallway, sick with nerves, I headed downstairs to clear my head and practically ran headfirst into Lam Shuofan.

He looked utterly wretched today—slouched, miserable, with every drop of his usual arrogant swagger completely drained. The moment he spotted me, he snapped defensively, “What, are you here for a pregnancy checkup?!”

I let out a cold smirk. “Yep, carrying your kid right now. Say hi to your mother, son.”

His face turned a sickly shade of green, and he turned tail and bolted for his life.

I watched him sprint away, my eyes following his frantic path… right until he burst through a door beneath a glowing, unmistakable sign: ANDROLOGY / MALE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH.

Ah. Oh. I see. Everything made sense now. Just like that, every last drop of annoyance I held against him evaporated into thin air.

When I walked back to the surgical waiting room, I found Jiang Yufan still sitting there, idly spinning the two ridiculous hair ties—one pink, one red—around his wrist. I offered to return his prayer beads, worried he’d feel off without them, but he gently pushed my hand back, securing the beads around my own wrist instead.

“Since my lady has already dragged me into the mortal realm… I should probably break the habit.”

He sounded as resolute as someone kicking a severe addiction.

When I asked if he missed holding his beads, he simply gave his wrist a slight flick, letting the hair ties show. “I’ve found a far better replacement.”

Finally, the surgical light flickered off. The chief surgeon stepped out, a relieved smile on his face. “The operation was a complete success!”

Every emotion I had been bottling up instantly exploded. Without thinking, I threw myself straight into Jiang Yufan’s arms, burying my face in his chest. “It worked… it really worked!”

His body stiffened for a fraction of a second before his arms wrapped gently around me, his long fingers softly patting my back. “Congratulations, my lady.”

In that exact moment, I realized I hadn’t just saved my mother’s life. I had accidentally captured a fallen god all for myself.

The next afternoon, I woke up in the Jiang estate after sleeping like the dead, only to be violently shaken awake by a panicked Hina.

A massive scandal had broken out: Lam Shuofan and I were currently trending #1 on Weibo for allegedly attending a prenatal checkup together.

The accompanying photos captured him standing in front of me, making it look like he was wrapping me in an intimate embrace. Worse, someone had leaked a maliciously edited voice clip: “pregnant… checkup… good boy…”

I let out a bitter, disbelieving laugh. Whoever chopped up that audio was in the wrong profession—they should’ve been writing soap operas.

I immediately called Sister Yun, proposing that we announce my marriage instead of just explaining the hospital visit. She agreed so fast it caught me completely off guard.

“Aren’t you worried I’ll lose fans?” I asked.

“Fans can be earned back,” she replied coolly. “What’s there to worry about?”

Sister Yun moved with terrifying efficiency. Within minutes, the real reason behind Lam Shuofan’s hospital visit was magically “leaked” online. The trending topics flipped overnight:

Directly beneath it sat the official press release announcing my married status.

The internet naturally went into overdrive, spinning wild theories. The top-voted comment confidently declared that I had married an eighty-year-old billionaire on his deathbed, which was why I was constantly holding prayer beads to pray for his health.

I laughed so hard my stomach ached. I immediately screenshotted the comment and sent it to Jiang Yufan on WeChat—an account the butler had practically forced us to exchange just last week.

I tossed my phone aside, intending to wash my face, when Hina called back, her voice shrieking so loudly it nearly blew out my eardrums.

“RANRAN!!! THE OFFICIAL JIANG ENTERPRISE ACCOUNT JUST REPOSTED IT!!! YOU GUYS JUST WENT PUBLIC!!!”

I whipped open Weibo.

The corporate account hadn’t reposted my agency’s statement. They had directly quote-retweeted the top comment claiming I married an eighty-year-old grandfather.

The official, verified account of the multi-billion-dollar Jiang Enterprise had added just four crisp words:

Attached were two high-resolution photos: a breathtaking side profile of Jiang Yufan in all his aristocratic glory, and a picture of our official marriage certificate, with our sensitive personal details tastefully blurred out.

Within three seconds, Weibo’s servers crashed completely.