Dial 'L' for love

Saying 'I do': The happy couple exchanges vows in Bali.

"When I took her on a tour of the resort the next day, I knew she was the girl on the phone, but she didn't realize that I was the voice on the other end until weeks later because I wasn't the only Chinese guy in the company," says husband Deng Yu, who was born in Liaoning province and had moved to Shanghai in his teens.

They became good buddies at work and got on well because they both came from Northeast China. Neither of them entertained a more serious relationship, because she only expected to be in Phuket for six months.

After returning to China, Cui worked at the company's new resort in Yabuli, a winter resort near Harbin. One day later that year, she noticed the name "Deng Yu" on the list of employees to be relocated to the Yabuli branch. She was "more than very delighted".

"I went to meet him the day he arrived. He gave me a hug, which was different from the one we shared when I left Thailand. It was not friendship anymore," Cui says.

Deng expressed his love to Cui days after, but she declined.

"Most employees in the company are relocated regularly. He would be sent to other resorts if he was aiming at a higher career path, but I didn't want to leave my home province, she recalls.

However, Deng held Cui's hand the next day. "It was like he took my rejection as an agreement. I didn't have the heart to say that 'I said no to you yesterday'. So we started our relationship," she says.