Fake It Till We Make It

Episode 1

Ruan Xin is broke, her mother's hospital bills are piling up, and her friend Zhang Qingyu has a job for her: wreck a blind date with a rich second-generation tycoon named Chen Yanzhu. One hundred thousand yuan if she pulls it off.

So she goes all in. She announces she'll spend Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with her college "study buddies," Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays with her girlfriends, and reserve married life for Sundays only. She even demands a test run upstairs first.

Any normal man would bolt. Instead, Chen Yanzhu calmly asks if she has any other requirements — then suggests they go get the marriage certificate today.

Episode 2

Ruan Xin is thrown. Chen Yanzhu agreed to everything, even the ridiculous schedule, and now he's talking about actually registering the marriage. She can't figure out if he's a fool or playing a game of his own.

Meanwhile, the real mess at home is brewing. Her boyfriend Zhou Shiyu is already planning to confess everything to her — he's been cheating, and he wants out before she finds out the truth herself.

There's also Ruan Sisi, pregnant, and the betrayal is closing in from every side. Ruan Xin has no idea the ground is about to drop out from under her.

Episode 3

The confrontation explodes. Ruan Xin walks straight into the truth: Zhou Shiyu and her own sister Ruan Sisi, with a pregnancy neither of them can hide. She doesn't crumble — she goes on the attack, calling Zhou Shiyu out as a cheater and refusing to let him spin it as her fault.

Ruan Sisi plays the victim, and Jiang Nüshi — Ruan Sisi's mother, the woman who rose from mistress to wife — steps in with slaps and venom, mocking Ruan Xin's place in the family.

Then it slips. Zhou Shiyu calls her "Ruan Xin" out loud, and she realizes someone nearby may have heard her real name. Her cover is cracking.

Episode 4

Zhou Shiyu won't back down, leaning on his family name like a shield — the Zhou family runs Jiangzhou, or so he claims. He threatens anyone who crosses him.

Ruan Xin doesn't flinch. When he presses her about the man standing beside her, she fires back that Chen Yanzhu is her fiancé and a thousand times better than Zhou Shiyu could ever be. It's a bluff, and she knows it.

Chen Yanzhu lets the lie stand, watching Zhou Shiyu squirm. Ruan Xin has no idea who she's just claimed as her future husband — or how badly that bluff is about to backfire in her favor.

Episode 5

Zhou Shiyu keeps swinging his family's name around, promising consequences. Chen Yanzhu ends it with a single order: drag them out, and shut every Chengshi Group location to the two of them for good.

That's when it lands. Chen Yanzhu is the president of Chengshi Group — the man Ruan Xin was paid to repel.

She tries to thank him and offer a favor, anything he needs. He cuts her off. He doesn't need money. "Do I look like someone who lacks money? What I lack is a wife." Ruan Xin just wanted money for her mother's bills. Now the president of Chengshi Group is looking at her like she's the answer.

Episode 6

Ruan Xin scrambles to keep her cover. Chen Yanzhu noticed everyone calls her "Ruan Xi," and she fumbles out an excuse about taking her mother's surname. If he learns she's the stand-in Zhang Qingyu sent to sabotage him, she's finished.

She tries to wave him off — says she's not interested in men right now and they're a bad match. He points out, mildly, that this is his car.

She escapes. Back home, the job is done: Zhang Qingyu confirms the sabotage mission is complete and transfers the one hundred thousand yuan. Ruan Xin breathes again — until she remembers the man she just lied to is the one man in the city she can't afford to fool twice.

Episode 7

Chen Yanzhu's grandmother has picked his next blind date personally: Zhang Qingyu, the Zhang family's daughter.

Zhang Qingyu, meanwhile, is panicking. She calls Ruan Xin, her reliable "fixer," and asks what happens if Chen Yanzhu actually insists on marrying her. Ruan Xin brushes it off — there's no "what if." If it happens, Zhang Qingyu can just pay someone to take her place.

Neither of them expects Chen Yanzhu to make his move first. He tells his people to call Zhang Qingyu and tell her he wants to marry her. And then, quietly, he says a name that isn't Zhang Qingyu's: Ruan Xin. He's interested.

Episode 8

Ruan Xin comes home to a war zone. Ruan Sisi has been hurt badly enough to land in the hospital, and the family is blaming Ruan Xin for it.

Jiang Nüshi coos that the baby is fine, so Ruan Xin should just apologize. Ruan Xin refuses to play along — she points out that Ruan Sisi got pregnant by her boyfriend, and that Jiang Nüshi, the mistress who became the wife, taught her daughter exactly how to do it.

Jiang Nüshi defends herself, insisting she and Ruan Xin's father truly love each other. The argument turns ugly. Ruan Xin's father has her locked up — no food, no water, no one allowed near her until he says otherwise.

Episode 9

Locked in and starving, Ruan Xin dreams about noodles and spicy shrimp. Then Zhang Qingyu calls, hysterical: Chen Yanzhu really does want to marry her.

Ruan Xin reminds her of their deal — if Chen Yanzhu insisted, Ruan Xin would have to stand in and marry him. Zhang Qingyu begs her to swap in, sweetening the offer with gossip: Chen Yanzhu supposedly has no interest in women at all, so marrying him would be perfectly safe.

Ruan Xin hesitates on principle. Five hundred thousand. One million — enough for ten months of her mother's hospital bills. Two million. She asks for the time and place. She's on her way.

Episode 10

At the registry office, Ruan Xin arrives late and flustered. Chen Yanzhu says she's right on time. They go in before it closes.

Just like that, it's done — a flash marriage. She jokes that it's her first time helping someone get married. He doesn't laugh.

Then he brings up her own rules from the blind date: the Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday nights out, married life only on Sundays. She admits she made all of it up to ruin the date. He has a business trip Sunday. So tonight, he says, is when they'll handle what needs handling.

Watch how Ruan Xin talks her way out of the marriage she never meant to start — and into the one she can't escape.