The Cold Branch Cannot Be Broken

[Sapiosexual romance × class divide × powerful heroine × a powerful man’s possessive pursuit × no groveling chase]

Proud heiress of a financial dynasty × aloof, impoverished scholar

Wen Xubai’s principles in life were simple:

Stay poor. Keep his boundaries. Protect the old bookstore called Between.

Until Shen Lingyi came along.

She was the most unreasonable intruder he had ever met: she didn’t knock or ask for directions, but simply bought the place next door. She wore a Patek Philippe, yet insisted on squeezing into his old bookstore to point at a copy of Selected Song Ci and ask, “How much is this?”

“Forty-two. No bargaining.”

“Then what if I buy you for life?”

He thought it was a joke, a rich heiress indulging a passing whim.

Until she shielded him from Jin Chengze’s humiliation. Until she quietly eliminated every threat around his mother. Until she cornered him against a library wall and whispered, their breaths mingling, “Wen Xubai, you can keep acting aloof, but I’m claiming your life, your pride, and the rest of your days.”

He wasn’t someone she meant to save.

She was his natural disaster.

She didn’t want his gratitude or his obedience.

She wanted those eyes, which saw nothing but ancient books, to finally lower themselves for her.

She wanted him, with all his proud scholar’s integrity, to bend for her willingly.

“You can hate me, too.”

“But the place next door, your side, every tomorrow you have, ”

“They can only belong to me.”