Chapter 1: Guilty Pleasures

Cyan had always been a voracious reader of romantic novels, especially those with the tantalizing premise of a runaway bride and a stand-in who must take her place and pretend to be her. There were always two outcomes to these novels. A: The male lead falls in love with the impostor or B: The male lead finds out and yearns for the female lead who has gotten together with their rival that may or may not be related to them. The plots were always the same and were never much of a surprise, but they had always been a guilty pleasure for her to consume after a hard days work.

That's all they had ever been for Cyan Donaghy before, just a guilty pleasure that she hid from others. That is until she had transmigrated into such a novel as the titular character: Zhao Yan Lin.

Before transmigrating into the world of these novels, Cyan was a 34-year-old entomologist who dedicated her life to the study of bugs and insects. As a conservationist and environmentalist, she worked tirelessly to protect and preserve the delicate ecosystems that supported these often-overlooked creatures.

In addition to her professional pursuits, Cyan also had a personal life that was far from perfect. She had shared her life with and been in a relationship with Xavier Wallace for the past 8 years and living with him for the last 6 and a half. However, their time together had come to an abrupt end when Xavier received an exciting offer to work at a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Paris.

Despite their shared love for one another, Cyan and Xavier had always wanted different things in life. When faced with the opportunity to pursue his dreams, Xavier made the difficult decision to end their relationship and move to France. To their friends and family, they presented a united front and insisted that their breakup was amicable. In reality, however, Cyan was absolutely devastated by the news. She felt like she had been gutted, and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and stay there for weeks.

But life doesn't stop for heartache, and Cyan was forced to carry on as normal. She went to work as usual, but when she returned home, she would immediately dive under the covers and try to escape the pain. To make matters worse, Xavier had even taken the cat that they had adopted together, leaving Cyan feeling truly alone and abandoned. It was a dark time in her life, and she couldn't help but wonder if things would ever get better.

During the tumultuous months following her breakup with Xavier, Cyan Donaghy was a pitiful sight to behold. She had lost all interest in the things that had once brought her joy, and she didn't care about anything or anyone. She was simply going through the motions of life, trying to survive each day as it came.

To the outside world, Cyan may have seemed normal, or even hardened by her experiences. But on the inside, she was feeling lost and adrift, struggling to find her place in the world without the person who had once been her anchor.

One day, as Cyan was making her way home from fetching food a few blocks away from her apartment, she found herself in a dangerous situation. She was tipsy and had gotten into a fight with some young men who had been trying to mess with her. In the heat of the moment, one of the men pushed her, causing her to stumble into the road in front of an oncoming car. The next thing she knew, she was being run over by the vehicle, and everything went black.

When Cyan finally came to, she found herself in an unfamiliar off-white room that was both luxurious and a bit plain. It was a strange combination, and as she looked around, she realized that she was in some sort of hospital room. She didn't remember how she had gotten there, or what had happened to her.

It wasn't long before a man named Bai Han entered the room, accompanied by a sharp-looking woman named Bai Yu Jun. Han was sweating profusely and seemed to be in a state of panic, while Yu Jun barked at Cyan to get out of bed and stop wasting time. Bai Han hurriedly tried to help her out of bed, handing her a beautiful emerald green dress and a pair of swan-white ballet slippers.

Cyan stared blankly at the garments, not understanding what was happening. Han, tried to persuade her to get dressed, all the while calling her Zhao Yan Lin and saying he knew she was in the midst of a stressful time. He told her that if she went through with the wedding, her grandmother would be well taken care of. All she had to do was pretend to be Fei Fei until her elder sister returned back to China.

As the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place, Cyan finally realized that she was, in fact, Yan Lin - the titular character of the novel "To Be a Bride." She had transmigrated into this world and was now living out the plot of the story she had once read with fascination and vigor.

In the novel, Yan Lin's half-sister, Bai Fei Fei, was set to marry Ma Zhen Zhu, the rich and powerful heir of the Ma family. The wedding was meant to cement a business contract between the two families, but just two weeks before the big day, Fei Fei ran away to the United States. She didn't want to marry the stoic and unknown Ma Zhen Zhu, and instead hoped to marry a foreign investor who her father disapproved of.

Desperate to salvage the situation, Yan Lin's father, Bai Han, went in search of his second, illegitimate daughter - Yan Lin - whom he had conceived during an affair. He hoped to use her as a replacement for Fei Fei and keep the business deal on track.

At first, Yan Lin was initially reluctant to go along with the deception, but when she saw the stack of hospital bills in her name and was chased by loan sharks, she knew that she had no other choice. She made a deal with her father: if she took her half-sister's place in the wedding, he would take care of her grandmother and pay off all of her debts.

Two days before the first meeting with Ma Zhen Zhu, Yan Lin was already having cold feet about the whole arrangement. She tried to run away, but Han followed her and tried to force her into the car. In the chaos, Yan Lin fell into a river in the middle of December.

As Yan Lin lay in the hospital room, trying to come to terms with her new reality, she couldn't help but feel a sense of apprehension. She knew that once she was discharged and dressed in the beautiful emerald dress and ballet slippers, she would be whisked off to meet the male lead of the novel - the enigmatic Ma Zhen Zhu.

Despite the luxurious surroundings and the promise of financial stability, Yan Lin couldn't shake the feeling that she was being rushed into something that she wasn't ready for. This wasn't her life, and yet it all felt very real, including the weakness from just waking up. She didn't want to get dressed because once she did, she knew what came next. She would meet the male lead and then be forced to marry him and act out the awkward and second-hand embarrassment inducing scenes.

Despite her reservations, Yan Lin knew that she had no choice but to go along with the plan. With nowhere to run and no money or identification to her name, she was completely at the mercy of her father and Yu Jun. So, with a heavy heart, she got dressed in the sleek, long-sleeved emerald green dress that had been provided for her.

The dress was perfect for the festive months, and Yan Lin couldn't help but feel a twinge of excitement as she slipped into the swan-white slippers and fastened an ordinary pearl necklace around her neck. Yu Jun would never let anything nice actually be given to Yan Lin, even if she was pretending to be her precious Fei Fei, and despite Yu Jun's attempts to keep Yan Lin looking plain and unremarkable, it was clear that she was a natural beauty. While the plain clothing choices were a far cry from the lavish wardrobe of a typical female lead, Yan Lin still looked radiant and innocent - the perfect fit for a naïve and inexperienced female lead.

After getting dressed and ready for the dinner ahead, Yan Lin was led out of the hospital and into a luxurious black car that whisked her away to a fancy Parisian restaurant. There, she was seated at a table with the Ma family - the wealthy and influential clan that she was expected to marry into.

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At the head of the table sat the patriarch of the family, Ma Xu Yao, with his wife Ma Lei Wen by his side. Across from Yan Lin sat the arrogant and cold Ma Zhen Zhu, the man she was to marry, and next to him was the playboy and mischievous Zhen Huan, the immature son of the family.

As Yan Lin sat there across from Zhen Zhu, feeling out of place and overwhelmed, she couldn't help but feel like she was in a dream. But the biting cold from outside and the lingering pain from the needle that had been stuck in her arm less than an hour ago were all reminders that this was all too real. There was no way this could only be a dream. For a moment, as she felt the throbbing of pain in her arm, all she could hear was the pounding of her heart, and the blood rushing to her ears.

As everyone took their seats around the table, the waiters and waitresses brought out the appetizer - escargot. Yan Lin was brought out of her daze as she soon remembered that in this particular scene, her character was supposed to start coughing and choking after finding out that she was being served slugs. As she tried to spit out the snail, the young Zhen Huan would rush to help the young beauty, only to have the snail come shooting out towards Zhen Zhu, hitting him square in the forehead. Th cold and arrogant lead was certainly not happy about the mishap, but he bore it with stoic indifference, unwilling to let anything ruin his carefully crafted image.

Unlike the typical heroine in the novel, Yan Lin was not afraid or disgusted of trying new things or eating strange foods. She had eaten escargot before and found it to be delicious, and she was also an entomologist in her previous life, so she was not afraid of any kind of bug or insect. As a result, she confidently started eating alongside everyone else, determined to prove that she wasn't like the original heroine.

For a while, everything seemed to be going smoothly. Yan Lin was enjoying the fancy meal, and the company of the Ma family, despite the tension and underlying hostility between the members. But as she reached her second-to-last snail, things started to go awry.

Escargots are notoriously tricky to eat, and even in her previous life, Yan Lin had struggled with them at times. But with her weak hands still recovering from her hospital stay, it was almost inevitable that something would go wrong. As she tried to extract the snail from its shell, it slipped from her grasp and flew across the table, hitting Zhen Zhu smack dab in the middle of his forehead, just like it had in the novel.

There was a moment of stunned silence as everyone stared at the snail carcass that was now stuck to Zhen Zhu's forehead, shell and all. Yan Lin couldn't help but feel a sense of mortification wash over her as she realized that she had just made an embarrassing faux pas.

Zhen Zhu finally cried in outrage, glaring at her with fury in his eyes, while Zhen Huan couldn't help but burst out laughing at the absurd situation. Yan Lin's father, Bai Han, and the Ma family - Xu Yao and Lei Wei - looked on in shock, embarrassment, and helplessness, as Yu Jun brimmed with hatred and rage at Yan Lin's clumsy antics.

Feeling tremendously mortified, Yan Lin immediately stood and apologized profusely, bowing repeatedly in a show of contrition. However, in her flustered state, she ended up knocking over two champagne flutes, which spilled straight into Zhen Zhu's lap. This only made the already-furious male lead stand up and yell even more, drawing the attention of everyone in the restaurant.

As Xu Yao berated his young son for causing such scene, he tried to calm down Zhen Zhu, but it was clear that the damage had been done. Yan Lin couldn't could but feel like everything was spiraling out of control, and she had no idea how to fix it.

As the tension in the restaurant reached a boiling point, Yan Lin tried to reach out with a napkin to dry the champagne that had spilled onto Zhen Zhu's pants. However, the angry man grabbed her hand, glaring at her with disdain and telling her not to touch him. He declared that the dinner was over and stormed off, leaving Yan Lin feeling humiliated and ashamed.

The rest of the Ma family soon got up as well, apologizing for their son's temper and for cutting the dinner short. Yan Lin sat back down in a daze as Yu Jun berated her for her foolishness and lectured Han about how an uncivilized girl like Yan Lin could never impersonate her precious Fei Fei.

As Yu Jun continued to lecture her with harsh words, Yan Lin couldn't hear a single one as she was too busy replaying the embarrassing incident in her head. She hadn't planned any of it to happen, and yet it had played out almost exactly like it had in the novel. After the snail incident, Yan Lin had apologized and they had moved on to the next course, but another incident occurred, and at dessert, it was the final straw for Zhen Zhu. Yan Lin had not been trying to follow the script of the novel, and yet the same result had occurred anyway.

Feeling mortified and defeated, Yan Lin wanted to curl up into a ball and die. She knew that she had messed up badly. She felt like a complete failure both in her real life, and even in a romance novel.

Yan Lin was soon dragged out of the restaurant by Han and Yu Jun and taken back to their luxurious penthouse apartment. She was shown into Fei Fei's room, much to the dismay of Yu Jun, but Han insisted that Yan Lin must act the part if she wanted to pull off the deception.

As she looked around the opulent room, Yan Lin couldn't help but feel out of place. Everything was so fancy and luxurious, so unlike the modest apartment she had shared with Xavier before their breakup. She felt like a fish out of water, completely out of her element and unable to fit in with the wealthy and privileged lifestyle. She was way in over her head.

As she lay down on the soft and comfortable bed, Yan Lin couldn't shake the image of Zhen Zhu's cold and mysterious eyes from her mind. He didn't care for her, he had clearly looked at her with disdain and contempt at dinner, seeing her as nothing more than a spoiled brat who relied on her father's money and was completely useless. But later on, he would fall hopelessly in love with the helpless Yan Lin who was kind-hearted and compassionate.

Yan Lin felt a rising sense of frustration and despair, she wanted to scream. She didn't want any of this - the luxurious penthouse apartment, the wealthy and privileged lifestyle, and certainly not the obligation to marry an overbearing CEO. She didn't want to fall in love with a guy like that. When she had read the novel, she had found it to be very cliché and the female character poorly written and unrealistic, and yet here she was, living out the novel. This wasn't her life, and yet at the same time, it was her life now. She wasn't really Yan Lin, so why did she have to go through with all of this? It was like she was living in a nightmare.

Yan Lin buried her head into her pillow and screamed, not holding back. She wanted nothing more than to go home, back to her life as Cyan Donaghy in San Francisco. Back to her messy and empty apartment, back to her taxing job studying bugs and insects. This wasn't her life, and she didn't want this life. But unfortunately, Yan had no choice in the matter. She was stuck in this strange and unfamiliar world, forced to place the part of Zhao Yan Lin and pretend to be someone she wasn't.

Still overwhelmed and lost, Yan Lin fell asleep in her clothes from dinner.

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