Romantic gesture beomes a blockbuster proposal

The couple pose for their wedding pictures in traditional Chinese attire.

Just seconds after they took seats in the middle of the theater, her husband said he needed to go to the restroom and left.

Roughly 15 minutes after the movie began he left again. "This seemed infrequent for him," says Zhang, a bank clerk.

She was about to fall asleep while watching the animation, when the screen suddenly switched to a line of text reading: "Coming back soon". Zhang was surprised. "What? Is it a commercial in the middle of a movie? But this has never happened before," she thought to herself.

Then the following sentences "I love you. I choose us" appeared on the screen. "That's my favorite dialogue in a movie," Zhang says.

She was confused and wondered what would happen next. Pictures of her husband, and then herself, followed by pictures of them together, were projected on the screen with a love song playing in the background. When Li walked onto the stage, she finally realized what was happening

"I looked around in astonishment and saw all our friends waving and smiling at me, with some taking photos. How should I describe how I felt? It was more than happiness," Zhang says.

Li asked her to come onto the stage and read her a written script where he recalled many things that had happened ever since they decided to be in a relationship, and spoke about how he appreciated her understanding and tolerance. "My memory flashed back to the scenes that he described but I didn't burst into tears like what usually happens in a movie. I just listened, smiled, and enjoyed the moment," Zhang says.

Li dropped to one knee with a bunch of roses and a diamond ring in his hand. They kissed to the cheers and screams of their friends.

The group had a big dinner that evening to celebrate and Li got drunk. "He leaned on my shoulder timidly and lovably and kept asking me, 'Do you love me?', 'How deep do you love me?', and 'Will you be with me forever?'. I didn't remember how many times he repeated the questions," Zhang says.

Li and Zhang are both form Northeast China's Jilin province, and knew each other from childhood. The couple were classmates in senior high school, and later both went to university in Shanghai and began dating at age 21.

One year after they got together, Li received an offer for an exchange program in the United States.

"But I gave it up even though I had gotten everything ready. I may come across another opportunity to go abroad in the future but my girlfriend is irreplaceable. 'I choose us', which is also what she sticks to," says Li.