The Divorce Ultimatum
Louis Franklin married Alice Johnson out of helplessness. In order to force her to divorce, he never went home for two years. Alice left him and returned to her identity as a gold star designer. After a drunken affair, they got entangled again, and Alice suddenly became Louis's subordinate. Alice struggled to hide the identity of his ex-wife and the truth of that one-night stand, when will Louis found out about that...
EP 1: After two years of neglect, Alice Johnson finally demands a divorce from Louis Franklin, who has been deliberately creating scandalous headlines to push her away. As Alice celebrates her newfound freedom with her best friend, Louis prepares the divorce papers, revealing his calculated plan to force the separation.Will Louis's scheming backfire when Alice re-enters his life as his subordinate?
A Fair Affair: When Gao Fan Becomes the Unseen Witness
Most viewers of A Fair Affair fixate on Jiang Yue’s emotional arc or Fu Lingyuan’s moral collapse—but the true spine of the narrative runs through Gao Fan, the assistant whose presence is so quiet, so perfectly calibrated, that he nearly vanishes into the background—until he doesn’t. From the first office scene, we see him standing just outside the frame, a silhouette against the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a tablet like a shield. His suit is immaculate, his posture neutral, his expression unreadable—not because he lacks emotion, but because he’s been trained to suppress it. Gao Fan isn’t just an employee; he’s the keeper of secrets, the archivist of silences, the man who knows exactly when Fu Lingyuan’s voice tightens on the phone, when his knuckles whiten around a pen, when he glances at the framed wedding photo on his desk and looks away too quickly. The film reveals this gradually, through micro-gestures: the way Gao Fan pauses before handing over a file labeled ‘Project Phoenix,’ the slight hesitation when Fu Lingyuan asks, ‘Has she called?’ The camera lingers on his wristwatch—not just any watch, but a limited-edition chronograph with Roman numerals and three subdials, the kind gifted to executives who’ve survived corporate purges. It’s a trophy. A warning. A reminder of loyalty’s price. In one pivotal scene, Fu Lingyuan sits slumped in his leather chair, head in his hands, while Gao Fan stands motionless beside him. The office is dim, lit only by the glow of dual monitors displaying stock charts and encrypted messages. A single bamboo plant sways slightly in the corner, the only movement in the room. Then, without turning, Fu Lingyuan murmurs, ‘She found the receipts.’ Gao Fan doesn’t react. Doesn’t blink. Just shifts his weight half an inch to the left. That’s all. But in that shift lies a universe of implication: he knew. He always knew. He processed the expense reports, approved the travel vouchers, flagged the hotel reservations under a shell company named ‘Lunar Horizon.’ He didn’t question it. He couldn’t. In the world of A Fair Affair, power doesn’t reside solely in the CEO’s chair—it flows through the assistants, the drivers, the security guards, the people who hold the keys to the vaults of information. Gao Fan’s loyalty isn’t born of admiration; it’s forged in necessity. Flashbacks—brief, fragmented, shown in desaturated tones—reveal his origins: a scholarship student from a provincial town, accepted into the elite business school only because Fu Lingyuan’s father funded the program. He graduated top of his class, interviewed with five firms, chose Fu Group not for the salary, but for the promise: ‘You’ll learn how the world really works.’ And he did. He learned how marriages are dissolved with a signature and a handshake, how scandals are buried with NDAs and offshore accounts, how grief is managed not with therapy, but with boardroom strategy sessions. Meanwhile, Jiang Yue’s descent into the karaoke lounge isn’t just escapism—it’s rebellion staged in full view. She doesn’t hide her pain; she weaponizes it. When she raises her bottle in that chaotic toast, surrounded by strangers who don’t know her name, she’s not seeking comfort. She’s declaring war on the illusion of perfection. Ye Nuannuan, her friend, is the perfect foil: loud, impulsive, emotionally transparent. Where Jiang Yue internalizes, Ye Nuannuan externalizes. Where Jiang Yue plans her exit with surgical precision, Ye Nuannuan stumbles into the next room, yelling lyrics into a mic, spilling beer on her shirt, laughing until she chokes. Their friendship is the only authentic relationship left in A Fair Affair—and it’s built on mutual exhaustion, not shared dreams. One scene cuts between three locations simultaneously: Jiang Yue singing off-key in the lounge, Fu Lingyuan reviewing merger documents in his office, and Gao Fan standing alone in the service elevator, staring at his reflection in the polished steel wall. His face is calm, but his eyes—just for a frame—are hollow. He sees everything. He remembers the day Jiang Yue first visited the office, nervous, clutching a folder of design proposals for the new charity wing. Fu Lingyuan barely looked up. Gao Fan offered her tea. She smiled at him, genuinely. That smile haunts him now. Later, when Jiang Yue returns home drunk and disheveled, Gao Fan is already there—not as an intruder, but as a protocol. He arrived ten minutes before her, having intercepted the building’s security feed. He doesn’t speak. He simply places a glass of water and a packet of aspirin on the kitchen counter, then steps back into the shadows. She notices him. Doesn’t thank him. Just nods, once. That nod is more intimate than any conversation they’ve ever had. The brilliance of A Fair Affair lies in its refusal to villainize or sanctify. Fu Lingyuan isn’t a monster—he’s a man who believes love is transactional, that commitment is a clause in a contract, that emotions are liabilities to be mitigated. Jiang Yue isn’t a victim—she’s a strategist who played the game until she realized the rules were rigged. And Gao Fan? He’s the ghost in the machine, the silent witness who holds the truth like a live wire, knowing that one day, he’ll have to choose: continue serving the system, or step into the light and risk everything. The film’s most haunting line isn’t spoken aloud—it’s typed into an email draft Gao Fan never sends: ‘I am not your shadow. I am the reason you still have a reflection.’ In the final sequence, as Jiang Yue walks out of the hotel at dawn, her hair damp, her makeup smudged, her suitcase rolling softly behind her, the camera pans up to reveal Gao Fan watching from across the street, standing beside a black sedan. He doesn’t approach. He doesn’t wave. He simply waits—until she disappears around the corner. Then he opens his phone, deletes the draft email, and types a new message to his sister: ‘Send the train tickets. I’m coming home.’ A Fair Affair ends not with a bang, but with a breath held too long—released at last. And in that release, we understand: the real drama wasn’t in the bedroom or the boardroom. It was in the hallway, the elevator, the quiet moments between sentences, where loyalty bends, truth flickers, and one man decides he’s tired of being the keeper of other people’s lies. Gao Fan’s arc is the quiet revolution of the unseen. He doesn’t storm the castle. He simply stops polishing the armor. And in doing so, he becomes the most powerful character in A Fair Affair—not because he acts, but because he chooses, finally, to exist.
A Fair Affair: The Quiet Collapse of Jiang Yue’s Marriage
The opening frames of A Fair Affair are deceptively serene—studio lights glow like halos, a photographer crouches with professional focus, and Jiang Yue sits beside Fu Lingyuan, both dressed in coordinated elegance. She wears oversized black-rimmed glasses, a striped cardigan over a ruffled blouse, her posture demure, almost childlike. He, in a pinstripe double-breasted suit with a subtle lapel pin, exudes controlled authority. Their wedding certificate, stamped with official red ink, shows the date: May 5, 2023. The photo on the document captures them side by side, smiling faintly—not joyfully, but dutifully. That image becomes the first lie in a narrative built on performance. Two years later, the screen cuts to black with the words ‘Two Years Later’—a cinematic sigh, heavy with implication. What follows is not a slow unraveling, but a sudden implosion, broadcasted live across digital feeds and gossip columns. A news ticker flashes: ‘Fu Lingyuan, CEO of Fu Group, spotted with another woman.’ The footage is pixelated, deliberately obscured, yet the body language speaks louder than pixels ever could: his hand resting too casually on her shoulder, her head tilted toward him as if sharing a secret only they understand. In the foreground, a framed copy of that same wedding photo sits on a marble console, flanked by a white ceramic teapot and delicate cherry blossoms—symbols of purity and transience, now grotesquely ironic. Jiang Yue watches from the sofa, backlit by the TV’s cold blue glow, her expression unreadable until she reaches for her phone. Her fingers tremble slightly as she dials. The camera lingers on her lips—painted coral, precise, rehearsed—and then on the pearl necklace she never takes off, even when she changes into that pale mint-green cropped blouse and satin mini-skirt later that night. This isn’t just betrayal; it’s erasure. Jiang Yue doesn’t scream. She doesn’t cry. She walks out of the penthouse, past the silent elevator, down the dim corridor, and into the neon-drenched chaos of a karaoke lounge called ‘Cyber Dreams.’ There, she finds Ye Nuannuan—her best friend, her confidante, the one person who still calls her ‘Jiang Yue’ instead of ‘Mrs. Fu.’ Ye Nuannuan is already half-drunk, wearing a cropped tank top with ‘Old West Unknown Inc.’ printed across the chest, plaid shorts tied at the waist, hair loose and wild. She laughs too loud, clinks bottles too hard, and sings off-key into a microphone while dancing on the booth’s edge. Jiang Yue watches her for a long moment before stepping forward, raising her own bottle—not in celebration, but in surrender. The two women toast, their eyes locking, and for the first time since the wedding, Jiang Yue smiles—not the polite smile for photographers, but the raw, unguarded grin of someone who has finally stopped pretending. The crowd around them cheers, drinks raised, lights flashing in strobes of green and violet. But behind the laughter, there’s grief. Every cheer feels like a funeral dirge disguised as a party anthem. Jiang Yue drinks not to forget, but to remember who she was before the title ‘Fu Lingyuan’s wife’ became her entire identity. She remembers studying literature, writing poetry no one read, walking through university libraries with headphones on, dreaming of publishing a novel titled *The Weight of Silence*. None of that matters now. What matters is the divorce agreement she holds in her bag—a single sheet of paper titled ‘Divorce Agreement,’ blank except for the header, waiting for signatures that will sever more than legal ties. Back in the office, Fu Lingyuan sits rigidly behind his desk, fingers steepled, gaze fixed on his assistant Gao Fan, who stands silently, hands clasped, eyes lowered. Gao Fan’s watch ticks audibly in the silence—silver, expensive, engraved with initials that match Fu Lingyuan’s cufflinks. He doesn’t speak unless spoken to. He knows better. When Fu Lingyuan finally looks up, his expression is not anger, but exhaustion—the kind that comes from lying so often you forget what truth feels like. He asks, ‘Did she sign it?’ Gao Fan hesitates, then says, ‘Not yet.’ A beat. Then Fu Lingyuan exhales, leans back, and removes his glasses. For a second, he looks younger, vulnerable, almost human. But the moment passes. He puts the glasses back on, adjusts his tie, and says, ‘Tell her I’ll be home by midnight.’ It’s not an apology. It’s a command wrapped in courtesy. Meanwhile, Jiang Yue stumbles out of the lounge, heels clicking unevenly on the pavement, her skirt riding up, her blouse untied at the waist. She doesn’t care. She flags a taxi, slumps into the backseat, and stares at her reflection in the window—smudged lipstick, flushed cheeks, eyes bright with tears she refuses to shed. The driver glances in the rearview mirror, says nothing. She gives him the address of a hotel—not the penthouse, not her parents’ house, but a modest boutique place near the old riverfront, where the rooms have wooden floors and no photos on the walls. When she arrives, she fumbles with the keycard, drops it twice, finally gets inside. The room is dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the curtains. She kicks off her shoes, walks to the bathroom, splashes water on her face, and looks at herself again. This time, she doesn’t flinch. She whispers, ‘I’m still here.’ And in that whisper lies the real climax of A Fair Affair—not the scandal, not the divorce, but the quiet reclamation of selfhood after being treated as a footnote in someone else’s story. Jiang Yue doesn’t need revenge. She needs to remember how to breathe without permission. The final shot of the sequence shows her standing at the window, watching the city lights blur into streaks of gold and indigo, her hand resting on the glass. Behind her, on the bed, lies the divorce agreement—still unsigned. But for the first time, the pen is in her hand. A Fair Affair isn’t about infidelity. It’s about the violence of being seen only as a role, and the radical act of choosing to be seen as a person again. Jiang Yue’s journey isn’t linear—it’s jagged, messy, punctuated by drunken laughter and silent phone calls and the unbearable weight of a pearl necklace that once symbolized love, now feels like a collar. Yet she endures. She dances. She drinks. She cries in the shower with the water scalding hot, scrubbing her skin raw, trying to wash away the residue of a marriage that demanded her silence. And when the morning comes, she won’t call the lawyer. She’ll open her laptop, pull up a blank document, and begin typing. Not a statement. Not a complaint. A story. Her story. Because in A Fair Affair, the most dangerous thing a woman can do is stop playing the part assigned to her—and start writing her own ending.