You were supposed to have a fake marriage with the diva, so how did you become her father?

It was almost 11 o'clock when I got home.

The living room lights were still on. Priscilla Chan sat on the sofa with a pot of tea that had gone cold in front of her. She held the remote control in her hand but didn't press any buttons. The screen was on the replay of the Golden Melody Awards, showing the scene where the two of them went on stage together to accept their awards.

Hearing the door open, she immediately stood up. Seeing Shen Yuege holding several trophies in her arms, her face immediately lit up with a smile, and she quickly walked over and reached out to take them.

"Wow, so many? Are you two going to collect awards or to buy them in bulk?" Priscilla Chan took the two trophies, examined them in her hands, turned them over to look at the inscription on the base, read it aloud, "Best Album Producer - Lu Ran", and the corners of her mouth curved into a deeper smile.

She turned to look at the seat on Shen Yuege's plate, "Best Female Singer—Shen Yuege, not bad, not bad, finally got it."

Shen Zhiwei came out of the study, wearing a gray cotton shirt and reading glasses, looking like he was reading a script.

He walked to the middle of the living room, glanced at the trophies on the coffee table, then at the one Lu Ran was still holding, and said, "Alright, there are almost more trophies in this room than we have bowls at home."

Priscilla Chan rolled her eyes at him and said, "Stop being so sour. Aren't you happy that your daughter won an award?" Shen Zhiwei replied, "Of course I'm happy. I just mean, there are a lot of trophies."

Shen Yuege piled the trophies on the coffee table, sank into the sofa, her long dress bunching up around her legs. She kicked off her high heels and put on slippers, letting out a long sigh.

Lu Ran placed the remaining trophies on the coffee table, then went to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, handed one to Shen Yuege, and drank the other himself.

Shen Yuege took the cup and drank a big gulp, then put it down and looked at the pile of trophies on the coffee table.

"I need to find a place to put them all up tomorrow," she said. "Last year's Best Newcomer awards are still on the shelf in my study, but I can't just pile them all up here this year; the shelf isn't big enough."

Priscilla Chan chimed in with a suggestion: "Isn't that wall in the living room empty? Let's build a display cabinet, the kind that covers the whole wall, with glass doors, and lights inside. We can put all the trophies in there. When friends come over, they'll see them immediately—it'll look so impressive."

Shen Zhiwei chimed in from the side, "With so many awards in a year, you could make a cabinet out of it. Next time you win an award, you can just put it in there." He said "next time" in a very casual tone, as if he expected that he would continue to win awards in the future.

Shen Yuege didn't reply. She stared at the row of trophies on the coffee table for a while, then looked up at Lu Ran with a more serious expression than before.

"Lu Ran," she said, "What I said on stage tonight was serious—a large part of these awards is thanks to you. Last year, I won the Best Newcomer award myself. To be honest, I thought I sang pretty well back then. I was happy to be nominated, and even happier to win. But this year is different. Behind each of these trophies stands a person whose name isn't on the trophy base, but is more important than the words on the base."

Lu Ran stood across the coffee table with a water glass in his hand. After listening to this, he was silent for two seconds, then said something that made Shen Yuege glare at him: "It's no use talking about this now. First, measure the cabinet dimensions, or you'll forget again tomorrow."

Priscilla Chan chuckled beside him. Shen Zhiwei pushed up his reading glasses, smirked, and then turned and walked back to his study, muttering, "Alright, alright, you've got the prize, the cabinet is done, time to sleep."

Shen Yuege did not go to sleep immediately after going upstairs that night.

She sat on the edge of the bed, scrolling through comments on her phone after watching the live stream replay. The light from the screen reflected on her face, and she would occasionally smile, as if she had seen some interesting comments or messages.

When Lu Ran came out of the shower, she was still holding her phone, muttering, "Some people say we're the most awarded couple in the history of the Golden Melody Awards, and someone replied, 'If they don't win, who will?'"

She held up her phone to show Lu Ran a screenshot of the comments on the screen. Lu Ran leaned over to glance at it and said, "Alright, go to sleep early. We still have to make cabinets tomorrow." Shen Yuege put down her phone and turned off the light.

The next morning, the two went to the building materials market and circled around several times before finally settling on a design for a glass display case.

Priscilla Chan insisted on installing LED strip lights inside the cabinet, saying, "The trophies will look especially bright with LED strip lights." Lu Ran, who originally wanted to save some money, was speechless when Priscilla Chan said, "You've already won the trophies, why would you care about the cost of lights?" In the end, he still added the LED strip lights.

The cabinet was custom-made and would take two weeks to arrive. The two of them gave the dimensions, paid the deposit, and left.

We received the wedding photos before the wedding.

When Liu Chengzhi sent the meticulously edited photos, he included a comment: "You two are the couple I photographed most smoothly this year. You barely need any editing; the composition and lighting are both great."

Shen Yuege flipped through the photos from beginning to end, deleted a few that she didn't like, kept the rest, and then chose a photo of the two of them standing together at the beach as the main photo on the empty wall in the living room.

After receiving their wedding photos, the couple began to seriously work on the wedding arrangements.

The venue was booked in advance. It was located in a resort in the western suburbs of Shanghai, with a large lawn next to a small lake. On sunny days, you could see the reflections of distant trees on the lake.

At the end of the lawn, a wooden flower stand was erected. The event planner said that the flower stand could serve as the main backdrop for the ceremony area, and flower vines and string lights could be wrapped around it.

Shen Yuege went to check it out in person, stood in the middle of the lawn and walked around, then said to Lu Ran, "This spot is fine. I'll stand under the flower stand, and you can walk over from the other side of the lawn, not too fast and not too slow."

Shen Yuege chose the floral arrangement herself.

She flipped through the reference catalog sent by the planning company and selected a combination of white roses and light green hydrangeas, embellished with a few pale pink multi-headed roses. The overall tone was cool but not too plain.

She repeatedly confirmed the color scheme with the florist, and sent screenshots of the reference images to Priscilla Chan. Priscilla Chan replied, "It's pretty good, unlike the pile of big red flowers when I got married." Only then did Shen Yuege finalize the plan.

Lu Ran suggested that instead of a formal banquet with more than a dozen dishes, the meal should be a buffet, with a mix of cold and hot dishes, and a few food stations where guests can carry their own plates.

Shen Yuege initially felt that the buffet was too casual and not formal enough, but Lu Ran said, "We've invited acquaintances, not people here for a banquet, but to attend a wedding. A more relaxed atmosphere will make everyone feel more comfortable." Shen Yuege thought about it and agreed, finding it reasonable.

The playlist was compiled by the two of them and will be played alternately during the ceremony and the meal.

Shen Yuege was responsible for picking the slow songs she liked, while Lu Ran was responsible for arranging the songs according to rhythm and mood to avoid suddenly switching from a very upbeat song to a very somber one.

He spent two nights compiling the playlist and sending it to the event planning company, with the corresponding songs marked for five time slots: "Before the Ceremony," "The Couple's Entrance," "Exchange of Rings," "Exit," and "Dining Session."

The guest list was a draft prepared by Shen Yuege.

She first listed her family and close friends, including several friends in the music industry she met last year, as well as several colleagues from her studio.

Lu Ran added his own list: the company's senior management, the contact persons of several partners, and a few of the new recruits from the campus recruitment batch that he remembered well.

After the two people combined the lists, they counted them and found there were about sixty people.

Shen Yuege added a few more names and deleted a few people she felt she wasn't very familiar with. The final list was no more than seventy people, which just met her previous requirement of "no more than eighty people".

The wedding day's schedule is also being refined step by step.

The event planning company sent over a schedule, starting with makeup at 9 a.m. and ending at 8 p.m., with each segment having a start and end time accurate to the minute.

After reviewing the schedule, Shen Yuege circled a few places, pushed back the makeup time by half an hour, and moved the photo shoot forward by ten minutes.

She said, "There's no need to be so strict about the timeline. Leave some flexibility so that if one part drags on, the rest won't fall apart."

Lu Ran, scrolling through her phone, said, "I'll come down to eat after I finish singing. You just need to take pictures with people."

The wedding dress selection has been finalized.

Shen Yuege tried on clothes at three stores and finally chose a simple off-the-shoulder style. The skirt was just the right size to cover her feet so she wouldn't trip while walking.

When she tried it on, she took a picture of Lu Ran and asked if it looked good. Lu Ran replied, "You look good in anything," and then added, "But this one is really suitable for a lawn wedding." Only then did Shen Yuege pay for it and place the order. She also picked out a veil, which was shorter than her waist, made of light gauze, and had a very fine silver thread sewn around the edge, which could be seen to reflect light faintly.

Shen Yuege found her own makeup artist for the wedding day; they had collaborated several times since last year.

On the day the look was finalized, she stood in front of the mirror for almost two hours, trying out three different hairstyles and four different makeup looks, and finally chose a low bun paired with natural nude makeup.

She said, "Heavy makeup isn't suitable for lawn weddings; the lighting will make your face look fake."

Shen Yuege did almost everything herself. If she weren't pregnant, she would have preferred to do something else entirely.

However, Shen Yuege also had her own reasons: it's not good to spoil a child too much while they're in the womb.

Lu Ran was speechless. Fortunately, Shen Yuege's tasks were not too heavy or tiring.

Let her be. I'll be right here with her. It's a once-in-a-lifetime wedding, so let her do whatever makes her happy.

...