Two colleagues who share a taxi home every night, hold hands in the back seat, but never kiss. They text "I love my life" on Instagram but cry into their pillows. Belliez subverts the expectation by refusing to turn this into a couple. The final verse reveals they both marry other people in the same year.
Podcast “Song vs. Song” dedicated an episode to comparing Belliez’s Hao Pengyou to Taylor Swift’s ‘tis the damn season . The consensus? Belliez’s characters are less nostalgic and more clinical—they know exactly what they are doing, and they choose the gray area intentionally. This resonated with post-pandemic daters globally who are redefining commitment. Was 2023 Belliez’s most commercially successful year? No. But it was the year they turned relationships into a philosophical genre. By rejecting both the Disney fairy tale and the heartbreak ballad, Belliez carved out a third space—one where love exists in the form of a shared grocery list, a mutual unfollow, or a two-second voice note sent at 3 AM.
A lesbian couple (a rare explicit representation in mainstream-adjacent C-pop) breaks up amicably. Instead of blocking each other, they must attend a family wedding together and pretend they are still dating to avoid saving face for the elders. The film shows them packing their shared apartment into labeled boxes: “His,” “Hers,” and “Ours.”
The protagonist doesn't try to close the distance. Instead, they create a shared imaginary city inside a voice memo app. Every night at 2 AM, they record ambient noise (traffic, rain, a boiling kettle) and send it cross-country.
Belliez, a singer-songwriter known for blending lo-fi R&B with confessional Mandarin poetry, became the accidental spokesperson for this shift. Their 2023 discography moved away from the angsty, individualistic heartbreak of 2020-2022 and toward complex relational dynamics—specifically, the tension between digital intimacy and physical distance, and the revival of "slow-burn" romance in a hookup culture. Belliez released a trilogy of singles and one short visual EP in 2023. Each piece portrayed a distinct type of Chinese relationship, breaking down the monolithic idea of “falling in love.” 1. The “Screen-to-Screen” Longing (Visual Single: City of No Sleep ) The most viral storyline involved a couple separated by China’s internal migration system—one partner in a first-tier city (Shanghai), the other in a rural hometown (Guizhou). In previous years, Belliez had written about the pain of separation. But 2023’s City of No Sleep introduced a revolutionary concept: the digital third space .
In 2023, Chinese relationship forums (like “Gou Xue” on Weibo) revealed that 68% of respondents under 28 had been in a situationship lasting over 6 months. Belliez didn’t demonize or romanticize it. Instead, the song's bridge contains a spoken-word confession: "We are not cowards. We are architects of a love that never collapses because it was never built." This legitimized the ambiguity, making Hao Pengyou an anthem for those who chose emotional safety over formal titles. 3. The “Breakup As Growth” Arc (EP Mini-Film: Spring Cleaning, Autumn Exit ) The most ambitious project was a 22-minute visual EP released in October 2023. Here, Belliez tackled the topic of post-relationship friendship in Chinese collectivist culture.
The keyword phrase “” has trended repeatedly on platforms like Reddit, Genius (for lyric annotations), and Douban. But what exactly happened in 2023 that made Belliez’s take on romance so distinctive? This article dissects the three major romantic arcs Belliez penned that year, the cultural shift in Chinese relationship dynamics, and why these stories resonated with millions. The Context: Why 2023 Was a Watershed Year for Romance in Chinese Media To understand Belliez’s work, one must look at the socio-romantic backdrop of China in 2023. Following the lifting of strict zero-COVID policies in late 2022, 2023 saw a collective yearning for emotional reconnection. Young Chinese netizens coined terms like “tan lian ai yang lao” (dating for retirement) and “xue xi ai” (learning to love again).