Urban Entertainment Industry · Secretly Pining in Silence · Mutual Healing · From Rivals to Lovers
The person Chu Xun hated most in this life was Long Yanci.
For four years in college, he was a down-and-out young man mocked in public for his “clumsy acting, like a block of wood.”
When they met again in the entertainment industry, he was an aloof actor who threw himself into auditions, only to be rumored to have “climbed the ladder with money and connections.”
Long Yanci, meanwhile, was the investor and CEO who held his career in his hands, sharp-tongued and cruel, always picking on him. He was also the man Chu Xun had secretly loved throughout his youth, a love he never dared confess.
One night, drunk, Chu Xun collapsed into his rival’s arms and threw up all over the man’s custom-made suit.
He expected another round of humiliation, but the man simply swept him back to his apartment, his fingertips restrained yet gentle.
Later, when the film crew made things difficult for him, his peers took sly digs at him, and a wave of online hate surged his way, Long Yanci was always there where Chu Xun couldn’t see him, quietly cleaning up the mess, backing him behind the scenes, and doing everything he could to protect him.
His coldness was a disguise, his sharp tongue a shield. Every clash between them concealed a depth of feeling he dared not put into words.
Then, at a family banquet, they discovered they shared the same humiliating circumstances:
One had been discarded by his birth family like trash; the other walked on eggshells among the wealthy.
They were both the least favored members of their respective families, used for comparison and put down for years.
Chu Xun suddenly understood.
All that cruelty, all those moments of closeness, all that concern disguised by insincere words,
weren’t hatred at all. They were seven years of unspoken, one-sided love.
Long Yanci: I insulted you, picked on you, and pushed you to grow because I was afraid you’d become too good for me to keep.
Chu Xun: I feared you, hated you, and avoided you for all these years, but in the end, I still fell into your hands.
[Rivals at first, the apple of his eye later] [Restrained, controlled CEO top × Slow-to-warm, insecure actor bottom]
