Morning Tide and Steep Ridges

Once the group's brightest rising star, Liu Junxi was framed by his trusted cousin and reduced to a commodity on the black market. Every rescue he had imagined fell through. In the end, it was his childhood friend and longtime rival, business tycoon Wan Shichen, who bought him for an astronomical price.

This is no fairy tale about a prince rescuing a princess. Wan Shichen offered him no wedding ring, but a cold "master-slave contract" and a dangerous proposal: "Be my 'property' for three years. I'll help you take back everything and get revenge on everyone."

From then on, Liu Junxi wore a smiling mask and played the most obedient "canary" at Wan Shichen's side. In public, he was a pretty plaything dependent on his master. In private, he and Wan Shichen danced along the tightrope between trust and suspicion, turning the business world and human hearts into a chessboard as they advanced one careful move at a time.

Their three-year agreement was about to expire, the empire was on the verge of being rebuilt, and the debt of vengeance was finally to be paid. But as they put their final plans into motion, they discovered that the black-market trap at the heart of it all was tangled in roots and branches, pointing to a family secret long kept hidden. More uncontrollable than the truth was the genuine love that had quietly grown through countless days and nights when nothing was as it seemed, and could no longer be torn away.