Upward Stab

The years Xu Zhi and Shen Yan spent entangled with each other were like a torture neither could ever call off.

The whole school knew Shen Yan was a demon who had crawled out of hell. He never bothered to hide the scars he had made on his own wrists. To someone like him, love was a burden and compassion a joke. Yet somehow, he clung to Xu Zhi like a mad dog, refusing to let go.

Until the video from three years ago surfaced. In the footage, Shen Yan was being trampled into the mud, while the girl in an expensive dress, smiling as she watched it all, was Xu Zhi.

It turned out this wasn’t an obsession. It was a debt being collected.

The whole world thought he wanted her dead. Only Xu Zhi knew that the cutting words he threw at her by day were real, but so were the blood-tinged kisses he pressed to the nape of her neck in the dead of night.

A torture that began in hatred ultimately sentenced them both to life.

All living beings suffer. You are both the thorn and the Buddha.

[Reader’s Guide · Please Read]

This is a contemporary romance centered on emotional pain. Neither lead is a good person without flaws.

She is an accomplice who watched with cold indifference; he is a victim who fights violence with violence.

The story contains school bullying, extreme behavior, pathological codependency, and a love-hate relationship. Their dangerous, obsessive dynamic swings between hostility by day and surrender by night. It is not a “relationship model” to apply to real life.

Shen Yan’s behavior is not the gold standard for devotion. It is a literary portrayal of a personality warped by trauma. Xu Zhi’s long, difficult road to atonement does not mean the harm done by bystanders can be easily forgiven.

The story includes self-harm, retaliatory violence, extreme revenge, and other such scenes. Readers should be sure to distinguish fiction from reality. If you experience bullying in real life, seek help from a teacher, parent, or the police as soon as possible.