[Clearheaded, Down-on-Her-Luck Wallflower x Cold, Ascetic Startup Mogul]
[Powerful Man Bows His Head + Hero Keeps His Feelings Restrained Until He Finally Breaks Down + Winning Her Back + Love Rival Showdown + Six-Year Age Gap]
Shen Zhaoli's father died in a fire while saving Liang Xingli.
For more than a decade, Shen Zhaoli treated her with the same cool distance he would show a stranger.
So Liang Xingli naturally kept her distance from him.
Until she fell for him, and until the day she heard him say with her own ears: "I'm only good to her because Dad gave his life to save her."
Again and again, his words extinguished every hope in her heart.
Again and again, she politely called him Brother Zhaoli.
*
When she returned to Qizhou, the usually composed and reserved Shen Zhaoli pursued her relentlessly, as if he had gone mad.
One night, he cornered her against a wall, the corners of his eyes red. His kiss crashed down like a violent storm. "Call me Shen Zhaoli. I was never your brother!"
She heard him plead in a hoarse, humble voice: "Xiao Li, please, don't leave me again."
*
Shen Zhaoli's mother, Zheng Huilan, asked him to look after Liang Xingli for two months.
Shen Zhaoli: "There's no need to go this far just to be a good person."
Years later, when a rival in love challenged him, "There's no need to go this far just to be her big brother, is there?"
Shen Zhaoli: "There is."
