Stop Pouring Salt on My Heart

• Gentle older Alpha × sharp-tongued but soft-hearted Omega (ABO)

• After an unrequited love goes nowhere, he meets the one; a slow-burn, healing romance

• A push-and-pull love triangle: he takes a step closer, the other backs away; the other backs away, and he edges closer

• “Little one” romance, with all the doting affection of an older partner

Mu Sichen was heartbroken. No, wait, that wasn’t right. He’d never actually dated anyone, so how could he be heartbroken?

He’d simply loved someone for years, so long that everyone assumed they’d get married, so long that even he thought they’d be together for the rest of his life.

Then he realized the other person might never have loved him just as much.

So he ran away.

He went abroad and hid out at his uncle’s place, burying himself in design sketches every day and swearing he’d focus on his career, give up men, and become the one and only Niu Hulu Mu.

But on his very first day there, he met an

Alpha…

This is a story of mistaken assumptions, misunderstandings, stubborn denials, and a spectacular case of falling hard.

There’s a groveling ex (but he’s not the one doing the groveling),

a slow-building romance, a marriage that starts before love (that part is true), a few not-so-bright love triangles, and a very clever Omega.

Also known as: “How I Went Abroad to Clear My Head and Got Slowly Boiled Like a Frog Instead.”

One-sentence summary

Shen Zhixu: “I’ve been boiling this frog for a long time.”

Mu Sichen: “Who are you calling a frog?”

[As for why this has its own story: their story is too long, and there isn’t enough room for it in the extras. It’s a long story, so if you want to know, come read it. If you want to know why the childhood friends didn’t end up together…]