The Tangled Lands

[A touch of Lovecraftian horror | ABO (original setting) | Alpha x Alpha | nonhuman | childhood friends | mind reading (flirtation-focused) | stoic, secretly passionate childhood-friend pursuer × outwardly gentle, inwardly ruthless recipient | supporting couples include BL + GL] Note: The author has many personal takes on ABO. If you dislike them, please stop reading immediately. Don’t hurt your eyes. Feng Changyi, a gentle and courteous Alpha, has always been popular with women and changes partners as often as he changes clothes. But every time a date invites him to a hotel, some absurd mishap gets in the way: either he’s targeted by a scam or the police show up. Most recently, he was caught in a police sweep after someone hid a ladybug next door, and his childhood friend, who had clung to him since they were little, had to come bail him out. Not long after that, he went with his roommates foraging for mushrooms to eat in hot pot, only to get poisoned. Even while delirious with a high fever, it was still his childhood friend who took him to the hospital and stayed by his side. On the day he was discharged, his friend came especially to pick him up as usual. That very day, a blunt thought suddenly rang through Feng Changyi’s mind: “Feng Changyi, when are you going to break up?” The mushroom poisoning had unexpectedly unlocked the ability to read minds, but it only worked on his childhood friend. Outwardly cold and taciturn, the Alpha was a distant, cool loner in public, but inside he was a long-concealed, smoldering romantic. Day after day, he revolved around Feng Changyi, wishing with all his heart that he would break up with his current partner so he could take their place. His mind was full of secret plans to flirt his way into becoming the one. The sudden barrage of thoughts left the usually composed Feng Changyi completely frozen, and from then on he was forced to witness the possessive, long-hidden crush his childhood friend had harbored for years. After Yan Mingjue finally got together with the childhood friend he had always longed for, his partner’s exes started appearing from every nook and cranny. He was dragged into their affairs, and a whole other side of the world he had never noticed before opened up to him.