Flora Chan reveals the secrets of her marriage to Zhang Jin: There is no fairy-tale romance.

Since marrying Mainland Chinese actor Zhang Jin, Cecilia Cheung and her husband have always presented a loving image to the public. However, Cecilia Cheung recently changed her image as a “show-off goddess” on the YouTube program “Happy Women’s Club” and confessed, “We are not as perfect as others perceive us to be,” expressing a sense of despair that “there is no fairy-tale-like love.”

In the program, Cecilia Cheung teared up when talking about her 17-year marriage with Zhang Jin. This woman who is usually described by netizens as carefree and joyful in front of the camera, for the first time revealed the “fragility” in her marriage under the spotlight.

From Cecilia Cheung’s recounting of her story with Zhang Jin, it turns out that this celebrity couple is just like ordinary people: they argue in the kitchen at three in the morning, they have silent battles for three days over who will pick up the kids from school, and they cry wordlessly while looking at the video on their phones.

According to a report by Hong Kong’s “Oriental Daily” earlier, Cecilia Cheung, who has been rising to fame in Mainland China in recent years, had once moved with her family to Shanghai before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. In early March 2022, Cecilia Cheung even praised the convenience of life in Shanghai on the variety show “Sending a Hundred Girls Home,” where she mentioned how online shopping could be delivered directly to her door, and there were services like ride-hailing and bike-sharing, making life convenient and affordable, expressing how Shanghai life couldn’t get any better.

However, unexpectedly, just after Cecilia Cheung’s words, the Covid-19 outbreak in Shanghai escalated. Authorities implemented extreme lockdown measures, commanding residents to stay indoors, even prohibiting farmers in the suburbs from working in the fields. Food became scarce, prices soared, and at the time of the city lockdown, Zhang Jin was away filming in Hengdian, leaving Cecilia Cheung alone with their three children in a rental house.

Cecilia Cheung described the dilemma she faced during that time on the program: her eldest needed help with adjusting devices for online classes, her second spilled milk that needed to be cleaned up, and her youngest had a high fever at midnight that required medication. She revealed how she trembled while speaking to Zhang Jin over voice messages from the bathroom, seeing the special effects glue on his face in the video call; she held back her complaints in that moment.

She recalled the period of the outbreak when she was living alone with their three children in Shanghai while Zhang Jin was absent due to work. She had to cope with the pressure of parenting alone and endure the loneliness of being separated from her husband, even breaking down emotionally and riding a bike to the park to cry, feeling forgotten.

The most heart-wrenching moment was on her birthday one year when the celebration planned by Cecilia Cheung was ruined because Zhang Jin was exhausted. She said, “I grabbed my bag and rushed out, crying like a madman on a park bench,” adding, “I just wanted the company of a cup of afternoon tea.”

Cecilia Cheung admitted, “We are not as perfect as others perceive us to be. I have cried for him countless times,” her candid confession quickly trending on Weibo, with netizens exclaiming, “So even the goddess’s marriage is like this?”

Born in Chongqing, Zhang Jin entered a martial arts academy at the age of nine. To fulfill his childhood dream, he later ventured into the entertainment industry, starting as a stunt double and working his way up to engaging in fight scenes with lead actors, a journey that took 16 years. Even after marriage, he was often labeled as “Cecilia Cheung’s husband” by the public. It was not until 2014 when he portrayed “Ma San” in the film “The Grandmaster” directed by Wong Kar-wai, that he finally won the Best Supporting Actor award at the 33rd Hong Kong Film Awards, changing the dynamic of their relationship to a more balanced one.

During his acceptance speech, Zhang Jin emotionally expressed, “My wife is Cecilia Cheung, many people say I rely on her for my entire life. Yes, that’s right, I want to say that my happiness in this life depends on her.”

At one point, when Cecilia Cheung was filming “Empresses in the Palace” in Mainland China, the stress caused her rapid weight loss, and Zhang Jin would make her soup in various ways every day; later, upon winning another award for “SPL II: A Time for Consequences,” his first words of gratitude were, “Thank you to my wife for not letting go when I wanted to give up.”

“There is no fairy-tale love, it’s all about patching things up and living through each day,” Cecilia Cheung remarked. She has learned to lower her expectations and discovered that seeing Zhang Jin secretly getting up in the early hours to prepare milk formula for their son’s touches her heart more than transferring 520 yuan on Valentine’s Day. Just like the voice message she keeps on her phone, from a day after an argument, when a tipsy Zhang Jin said, “Wife, I may never be a perfect husband, but I promise to love you a bit more every day than yesterday.”