The relationship developed.
They fell in love.
In 2012, they married.
At that stage, neither knew that Qingdao already contained a hidden chapter of their shared story.
A Return to Qingdao
There was an additional coincidence.
After meeting and becoming a couple, Xue and Ye visited Qingdao together.
ABC News reported that they returned to the city in 2012 and took photographs there as a couple.
Other coverage reported that they even had wedding photographs taken in Qingdao.
Even then, they did not know what had happened in July 2000.
To them, Qingdao was simply a beautiful coastal city they both happened to have visited before.
Neither realized that one of Xue's old photographs already contained both of them.
The secret stayed buried in an album.
Years passed again.
The couple built their married life and eventually became parents to twin daughters.
Then, in 2018, an ordinary family moment caused Ye to open an old photo album.
What happened next transformed an old vacation picture into an international news story.
The Photograph Comes Back
Ye was visiting his mother-in-law's home when he began looking through old photographs of Xue.
According to The Independent, he was curious about whether the couple's twin daughters looked more like him or their mother.
It was the sort of thing many parents do.
They compare childhood photographs.
They study familiar expressions.
They notice the shape of a nose, a smile or the way someone looked at a particular age.
Ye began flipping through Xue's old pictures.
Then he reached a photograph from Qingdao.
He recognized May Fourth Square immediately.
And then his attention shifted to the background.
There was a young man standing some distance behind Xue.
Ye looked closer.
Something about the man's posture was unmistakably familiar.
The stranger in his wife's childhood vacation photograph was him.
Ye later explained that he recognized the way he had posed for photographs.
He remembered that he too had taken a picture at the square that day.
According to The Independent, seeing the image gave him goosebumps.
He searched through his own photographs and found the corresponding picture from his trip.
The clothing, location, posture and background confirmed what he had suspected.
Both photographs had been taken at approximately the same time.
He had not merely visited Qingdao in the same year as his future wife.
He had apparently been standing only several meters away from her at the same moment.
Eleven Years Before Their First Date
The discovery forced the couple to reconsider the timeline of their relationship.
Before seeing the photo, their story began in Chengdu in 2011.
After seeing it, there was suddenly an earlier scene.
July 2000.
Qingdao.
May Fourth Square.
Two teenagers or young people traveling with completely different groups.
One young woman posing for a photograph.
One young man in the background.
Neither knowing the other's name.
Neither understanding that they would eventually marry.
It was not a meeting in the normal sense.
They did not remember each other.
They did not exchange words.
But their physical paths had crossed.
The Guardian reported that the pair had been standing only several meters apart, approximately 11 years before they met in another city far from Qingdao.
That distinction is important because the story is sometimes exaggerated online.
They were not childhood sweethearts.