Who Led Whom into Whose Trap?

In the northern art scene, Zhou Beiyou is famed as a notorious playboy. He paints Dunhuang flying apsaras on his body, then wipes them off, calling it performance art. He turns romance into a hit novel full of flirtation, but never makes it official, and mocks marriage as "finding a wife to spruce up your image." He claims that being honest with women is "playing games with ghosts." This philosophy of treating life as a game has made him a legend in the scene.

That is, until he meets Lin Shen at an avant-garde art exhibition.

Lin Shen is a sociology PhD from Columbia University, specializing in intimate relationships and contemporary emotional patterns. She is writing a major paper on fear of commitment in the postmodern context, using highly educated urban men as her sample. Zhou Beiyou, a living embodiment of her theories, perfectly fits every one of her criteria.

A sociology PhD studies an artist, only to become the one being studied.

So who sets the trap of love for whom?

And who becomes whose first teacher in love?

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.