For a long moment, Rajendra didn't move. The little red book lay on the counter between them like a misplaced betting slip from a horse race he hadn't known he'd entered. The officer was already looking back at his newspaper, his duty done with the weary satisfaction of a man who has just watched another fool walk off a cliff.
Guo Huilan reached out, picked up one booklet, and slid the other toward Rajendra. She tucked hers neatly into her leather folder, fastened the clasp, and looked at him. She was, he noticed for the first time in his stunned state, strikingly severe. Her black hair was cut in a sharp bob that ended exactly at her jawline, not a strand out of place. Her face was all clean angles—high cheekbones, a straight nose, lips pressed into a thin line of absolute purpose. She wore a grey wool jacket over a white blouse, and everything about her screamed controlled efficiency, from the precise knot of her scarf to the way she held her folder exactly parallel to the edge of the counter. She looked less like a new bride and more like a librarian who had just catalogued him under "Temporary Acquisitions."
"Come," she said. "We'll talk outside."
Her voice was the same—calm, precise, completely devoid of the hysterics one might expect from a woman who had just legally bound herself to a stranger from India. He picked up his red book. It was warm from the counter and had the flimsy, important feel of a ration card. He followed her out.
The afternoon sun was still shining. A man was selling roasted sweet potatoes from a cart. The world had not ended. Rajendra half-expected a bolt of lightning, or at least for Mrs. Chen to appear shaking a rolling pin. Nothing. Just Shanghai going about its business, completely unaware that he, Rajendra Shakuniya, pressure cooker king of Dadar, was now officially a Chinese son-in-law.
Beta, you went for business and came back a groom, he could hear his mother's voice say. At least she's not a film actress. That's something.
The sheer absurdity of it hit him like a delayed sneeze. He had to fight a sudden, wild urge to laugh. He'd dodged assassination attempts, smuggled alien magnets, and negotiated with Soviet generals. And now this. Of all the strange corners of the multiverse, he had somehow stumbled into a Chinese marriage bureau and signed his life away because a woman needed to dodge a bad date. It was the most bizarre, bureaucratic plot twist yet.
She led him to a small public square with a few benches and a sad-looking fountain that hadn't seen water since the last emperor. She sat, placing the folder beside her like a sacred text. He sat down, leaving a respectful foot of space between them—appropriate for new in-laws, he thought wildly.
He held up the red booklet. "What is this?"
"A solution," she said, looking straight ahead at the dry fountain as if it held the secrets of state planning. "To a problem."
"Your problem."
"And now, partially, yours."
He opened the booklet. Inside were neat columns of characters that looked like elegant bugs marching in formation. His name was there, transliterated into something like "Lā jiěn dé lā." There were two signatures—his clumsy cursive and her elegant, brush-stroke characters that looked like a flying bird had dipped its feet in ink and danced across the page. An official red stamp, like a communist cherry on top, completed the masterpiece.
"You married me," he said, the words sounding absurd even to his own ears. "Without asking. In India, we at least get a meal and a garland first."
"I requested your assistance. You agreed."
"You said 'stand-in'! I thought you meant for a photo, or to carry your bags! Not for… this!" He waved the booklet.
"You are standing in," she said, finally turning to look at him. Her dark eyes were like polished stones—intelligent, unreadable, and utterly serious. "As my husband. For one year."
He took a deep breath, trying to find his footing in this landslide. "Explain. From the beginning. And slowly. My Chinese is limited to 'hello,' 'thank you,' and 'how much?'"
A flicker of something—not a smile, but the ghost of one—passed over her face. "My father is a general in the People's Liberation Army. He is also a traditional man. He has arranged a marriage for me to the son of a senior comrade in Beijing. It is a political consolidation. A merging of influence."
"And you don't want to."
"I do not. The man is a peacock who quotes propaganda instead of poetry. The alliance would also end my work in light industry reform. I would become a decorative teacup in a Beijing cabinet. I have refused. This has caused a significant… disagreement. My father's patience is exhausted. My position is becoming untenable."
"So you married a foreigner."
"A neutral foreigner from a non-aligned nation. An Indian businessman with no political ties to any Chinese faction. It is a scandal, but a manageable one. It destroys the Beijing marriage prospect completely—no one will accept 'used goods,' as they would see it. But it is not a direct political challenge, so my father may eventually accept it as a fait accompli. In one year, we divorce citing cultural differences. You return to India. I am free, my projects continue, and my father's alliance is broken without me having to openly defy him."
She laid it out like a project report. Objective, Methodology, Expected Outcome.
"And my benefit?" Rajendra asked, slipping into merchant mode almost instinctively.
"While you are legally my husband, you operate under a degree of protection. Bureaucratic obstacles for your business will lessen. Certain introductions can be made. Your stay in China will be smoother. Consider it a retainer for your service." She paused. "You also have my personal debt. I do not forget the bicycle. This repays it on a larger scale."
It was a transaction. A mad, brilliant, utterly Chinese transaction. He almost wanted to applaud.
"The rules," she said, holding up a hand. She counted them off on her fingers, her nails neatly trimmed and unpolished. "First: no cohabitation. You stay in your rented room. Second: no public displays. We will be seen together only at necessary official or social functions. Third: no interference in each other's professional lives. Fourth: absolute discretion. No one in India can know this is not real. It must appear to be a genuine, if rushed, romantic marriage."
She handed him back his red booklet. "Keep this safe. You may need to show it to authorities. Do not lose it. In China, losing your marriage certificate is worse than losing your passport. It suggests… instability."
He was about to ask what happened if he needed to explain a sudden Chinese wife to, say, a certain sharp-eyed Sharma heiress back in Mumbai, when a sleek black Santana sedan pulled up. A young man got out. He was handsome in a sharp, polished way, like a propaganda poster come to life. His suit was expensive, his hair perfect, his face a mask of entitled fury.
He stormed over, ignoring Rajendra completely, and launched into a torrent of harsh Mandarin. His voice was a low, angry hiss.
Guo Huilan stood up smoothly. She let him finish his tirade, then said a single, clear phrase in English, gesturing toward Rajendra like a museum guide indicating a mildly interesting exhibit. "My husband."
The young man—Xiao Wei, Rajendra guessed—jerked as if he'd been slapped. He turned his head slowly, as if fearing what he might see. His eyes swept over Rajendra's simple cotton trousers, his worn leather shoes, his utterly unimpressive posture. The look on his face was one of pure, undiluted insult. It was the look a prince might give a pigeon that had just landed on his throne.
His lips curled. He spat a single, guttural word at Guo Huilan, shot Rajendra a glare that could have frozen the Huangpu River, turned on his polished heel, and marched back to his car. The door slammed with a sound of final, expensive violence. The car peeled away.
Guo Huilan sat back down, adjusting her jacket. "You see?" she said, no triumph in her voice. "Already it works. You are a very effective… blunt instrument."
Rajendra walked back to the widow's green door feeling like he'd been spun in a giant washing machine. The cold knot in his stomach, which had been a vague worry, had now crystallized into a sharp, guilty weight. Shanti.
He pictured her in the Mumbai office, going over spreadsheets, trusting him to be off making boring business deals. What would he tell her? The meetings are going well. Oh, and by the way, I've acquired a wife. Temporary, of course. Purely strategic. She's very efficient. Doesn't like peacocks. The thought made him feel like a heel. He hadn't betrayed her, not really. But he had stepped into a secret that felt, in its own bizarre way, like a betrayal.
Mrs. Chen was in the dim hallway, sprinkling something that looked like ash around the base of her sickly potted plant.
"You have trouble," she stated, not looking up.
"A little, Āyí," Rajendra admitted, using the respectful term for auntie.
She grunted. "Trouble has a face. Was it a woman's face?"
"It… may have been."
"Hmph." She shuffled into her kitchen and emerged a minute later with a steaming bowl of noodle soup on a tray. She thrust it at him. "Eat. Trouble is lighter on a full stomach."
He took it, touched. "Thank you."
"Don't thank. Just eat. And no women in the room. That is still the rule. Even wives." She gave him a look that suggested she knew more than she let on, then disappeared behind her curtain.
He ate the soup at his desk. It was simple, salty, restorative. The red marriage booklet lay beside the bowl. He stared at it. Lā jiěn dé lā. Husband. He was now a married man with a wife who had rules instead of vows, a father-in-law who was a general, and a mother-in-law he'd probably never meet. His own mother would have a heart attack. Then she'd ask for grandchildren.
His secure phone buzzed. Ganesh.
"Bhai? Everything alright? China treating you well?"
Rajendra looked at the red booklet. "It's… an interesting place. Business is moving. Tell Shanti…" He paused, the cold knot twisting. "Tell her I'm extending my trip. A week, maybe two. New… opportunities."
There was a long, telling silence. Ganesh knew him too well. "Understood, bhai," he said finally, his voice carefully neutral. "Be careful. And bhai?"
"Yes?"
"Don't bring back a surprise."
Too late, Rajendra thought. He'd brought back the mother of all surprises, and it fit in his breast pocket.
He had just hung up when there was a knock. Not Mrs. Chen's knock. This was official.
A young man in a plain tunic stood there, holding a bicycle. He said nothing, just handed Rajendra a crisp white envelope, nodded once, and left.
Rajendra opened it. High-quality paper. Elegant, precise handwriting in English:
Mr. Shakuniya,
Tomorrow evening. 7 PM. The Peace Hotel, Riverside Lounge. Formal attire required.
Your presence is requested to meet my father.
— GHL
Meet the father. The General. The man whose political plans he had just, however unwittingly, blown up.
He placed the note on the desk. The tableau said it all: the empty soup bowl of kindness, the sinister red booklet of matrimony, the elegant summons to a dragon's den.
He started to laugh. It was a quiet, helpless sound that shook his shoulders. He laughed at the madness of it, at the sheer audacity of this woman, at the fact that his life had become a strange cocktail of interstellar trade and terrestrial soap opera.
The laugh died as he thought of Shanti again. The cold knot returned, heavier.
He was no longer just a merchant in China. He was a stunt groom in a political drama, and the curtain was rising. And the strangest part was, as he looked at the note from his new, temporary, ruthlessly efficient wife, he realized he wouldn't have it any other way.