The Trapped Butterfly

Meng Yancheng had turned himself into a butterfly specimen.

Trapped beneath the cold glass dome of the Meng family, trapped under his mother Fu Wenying's control "for his own good," trapped in his doomed vigil for Xu Qin. He thought this was how his life would be: proper, restrained, perfect, until he rotted away.

Her name was Shen Li. She was a poor student supported by his father, one more footnote in the Meng family's "good deeds." From the first time she stepped into the Meng family villa, she sensed the deepest secret in that home: the way a brother looked at his sister was not innocent. Like a moth that had wandered into the glass dome, she saw the butterfly's painful struggle.

Fu Wenying discovered her son's secret, and she discovered Shen Li, too. Using a sponsorship contract to threaten her, she gave Shen Li two choices: leave Meng Yancheng, or destroy the money keeping her father alive.

Shen Li chose a third path.

She stood before Meng Yancheng and said, "Meng Yancheng, you can't save Xu Qin, because you refuse to let yourself sink. All you can do is be a beautiful specimen. But I'm different. I can be the moth that takes you out of here, if you dare reach out your hand."

This is a story about two butterflies trapped beneath a glass dome, saving each other. One doesn't dare to love, the other shouldn't love, and yet somehow they meet. When layer upon layer of disguise is stripped away, and Meng Yancheng finally dares to look straight at the monster in the mirror, the one who loves his own sister, he finds someone else by his side.

She's dirty, she's crazy, and she's not respectable. But she loves him.