[Angsty romance + stand-in love + the hero's long road to winning her back]
"He spent three years turning me into someone else's shadow, then half a lifetime begging me to be myself again."
Wen Nuan, a child bride bought by the Duan family, was discovered by Gu Mohan while changing at a family banquet.
He was the king of Haicheng, a man who could make the city tremble, but the moment she turned around, his pupils contracted. Her face was exactly like that of his missing fiancée.
With a single contract, she became the perfect stand-in.
Night after night, he kept her prisoner in his bed, tormenting her with the hatred he felt as he looked through her at someone else.
"Remember your place." Gu Mohan gripped her chin and tossed a check onto her bare shoulder. "You're just a plaything I bought to warm my bed."
Wen Nuan thought this was how she would spend the rest of her life, until one night when rain poured down in sheets.
Gunfire tore through the villa as Gu Mohan's sworn enemy burst in.
In the chaos, she was abducted as a "prize" and vanished without a trace.
Gu Mohan searched the whole city like a madman, but all he found was one earring she'd left behind and a torn piece of a psychiatric hospital record stating, "Patient is showing severe cognitive impairment."
Years later, at an international jewelry auction,
Wen Nuan made a dazzling entrance in a red gown, arm in arm with a rising business magnate. The beauty mark beneath her left eye sparkled under the camera flashes.
Gu Mohan pushed past the bodyguards, eyes bloodshot, and fell to his knees before her. "Wen Nuan... I've been looking for you for 1,471 days."
She leaned down, patted his face, and smiled without warmth.
"Mr. Gu, you've got the wrong person."
"The person bidding on your family's heirloom jade tonight."
Just then, the little boy beside her peeked out. His features bore an uncanny resemblance to Gu Mohan's.
"Mommy, why is that uncle crying?"
