Lin Ruohan has been having the same nightmare lately.
In it, he and his sworn enemy, Yuan Yanxiang, whom he goes out of his way to avoid, are legally married.
Even more absurdly, the Yuan Yanxiang in his dreams drops all pretense:
he controls every part of Lin Ruohan's life, from where he goes and who he sees to the smallest details of his daily routine.
He gives Lin Ruohan everything he wants, but whenever Lin Ruohan tries to escape, he punishes him in ways that leave a lasting mark.
Lin Ruohan is trapped in the nightmare, sinking into it before jolting awake. He despises his dream-self for finding a twisted sense of security in that suffocating control.
“Thank goodness... It was only a dream.” Wiping away his cold sweat, he is relieved that the real Yuan Yanxiang still keeps up his polite, distant facade.
Until
He notices a look in Yuan Yanxiang's eyes that occasionally carries the same obsession he sees in the nightmare.
Until
Yuan Yanxiang accidentally lets an endearment slip, then turns deathly pale, looking as flustered as a child caught doing something wrong.
Until
In Yuan Yanxiang's notebook, he glimpses a line scrawled with force:
[He absolutely mustn't find out...]
Lin Ruohan's heart suddenly races out of control.
The tyrant who forced himself on him in his dreams and stopped at nothing to possess him...
Is actually afraid in real life?
[Read before you start: content warnings]
Top (Yuan Yanxiang): Master of dreams, a coward in real life!
An impeccable professional in public, but in dreams he's a coercive-love maniac with overwhelming possessiveness, ruthless methods, and absolutely no moral boundaries.
Bottom (Lin Ruohan): Struggles between the dream prison the top has woven and the strange “slips” in reality.
The main setup: The top deliberately weaves coercive-love dreams + desperately tries to cover his tracks in reality, but keeps letting things slip + sworn enemies become “spouses” in dreams + the top has an extreme contrast: elegant exterior, madman's soul, coward in reality.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It hit my xp. Although I never know what my xp is, it just looks good. The rhythm is not very heavy, but it is very appetizing. It is good-looking, good-looking, and incoherent. It is really very good-looking. It is worth the effort.