While some people might think that this is an ordinary photo of two Chinese tourists posing in front of an outdoor sculpture, the story behind it is actually much more surprising.

The 18-year-old photo depicts Xue, who is visiting the May Fourth Square in the seaside city of Qingdao as a means of lifting her mother's spirits following a surgery. In the background, you can see Ye, who was on a tourist trip that his mother had booked for herself. Due to a sudden bout of appendicitis, however, Ye went in her place.

The weird thing about the picture? They're going to be married in eleven years – but they don't know it yet.

Xue and Ye first met in the city of Chengdu in 2011. They fell in love, got married, and gave birth to twin daughters. But up until this week, they had no idea that they had come so close to meeting each other in a town that is thousands of miles away from their current home.

They only discovered the missed connection when they were going through old photos and noticed that Ye was standing in the background of Xue's photo, posing for a picture of his own.

According to the couple's friends, the photograph is a definite sign that they were meant to be.

"When I saw the photo I was taken by surprise and I got goosebumps all over my body," Ye told Sina News. "I also took a photo, it was the same posture [as captured in Ms Xue's photo], just from a different angle."

"It seems that Qingdao is certainly one of the most special cities [for us]. When the children are older, we will go to Qingdao again and the family will take a photo again."

Married couple in China discover they appeared in same photograph as teenagers: Report https://t.co/n0OLNxKbUi pic.twitter.com/vrSlECRRmP

— Channel NewsAsia (@ChannelNewsAsia) March 11, 2018

Married couple in China discover they appeared in same photograph as teenagers: Report https://t.co/n0OLNxKbUi pic.twitter.com/vrSlECRRmP

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