Shen Yan had met too many rookies trying to ride on his coattails. He’d never met one who acted this convincingly.
Lu Zhi was as docile as a rabbit around him, lowering his eyes and calling him “Brother Yan” in a voice so soft it could melt you.
When Shen Yan taught him to dance, he would “clumsily” stumble into his arms. While filming a variety show, he would “nervously” hide behind him.
Until one late night, Shen Yan caught him smoking on the balcony.
The firelight licked across his face. His gaze was as cold as if he were another person.
“Brother Yan,” Lu Zhi turned around, smiling without warmth. “Don’t you like me sweet and obedient?”
Only later did Shen Yan learn that every chance encounter had been planned, and every flutter of his heart had been calculated.
He thought he was taming a stray cat. In truth, he had always been the one in someone’s sights.
The silver pendant on Lu Zhi’s right ear was a token of the Yi people’s Black Yi nobility, and a shackle binding generations through arranged marriages.
Three years ago, Shen Yan had casually remarked, “That’s pretty.” Someone had flown back to Liangshan that very night and knelt for three days to get it.
“I’ve been acting my whole life,” Lu Zhi said, placing the silver pendant in his palm and rubbing the old scar with his fingertip. “But loving you is the one thing I never faked.”
But Yi tradition runs in their blood, and family pressure cuts like a knife.
Only after Shen Yan crossed the village gates, knelt in the ancestral hall, and accepted the inherited silver pendant
did he understand what “taming” meant.
It was never Lu Zhi who had been tamed by him.
He had willingly stepped into this wolf’s territory, with no intention of ever leaving.
“You taught me how to act. I’ll teach you how to love me.”
On our eighteenth chance encounter, I’ll be the one to come to you.
We’ll grow old together, hand in hand. I’ll keep my promise.
