Radiant genius architect × restrained older man in power
She makes the first move | He breaks his rules | Secret romance | A battlefield of pursuit | Growing together | Career storyline
At twenty-five, genius architect Shen Zhaoyi takes on the century-old renovation project for Qiwuhotel.
She's beautiful, proud, and free-spirited, and insists on saving the old hotel that everyone else wants to tear down and rebuild. To get her plans approved, she makes the first move and approaches Mr. Zhou, the dignified and self-restrained representative of the investors.
Zhou Yanchuan is thirty-two. He has been in power for years, keeps his emotions in check, and never crosses a line.
He knows her approach has an ulterior motive, yet he leaves the door open for her, rearranges his schedule, lights the stairs for her late-night inspections, and lets her gradually work her way into his life.
She thinks she has finally made him break his rules.
But after they confirm their relationship, Shen Zhaoyi discovers in the project files that Zhou Yanchuan was never just an investment consultant. He is the project's true behind-the-scenes decision-maker, with the power to replace her, and he also signed a protection agreement with her father without ever telling her.
It turns out that the opportunity she fought so hard for, and the love she believed was between equals, had both been under his control all along.
Shen Zhaoyi returns the key, goes back to addressing him formally, and completely withdraws every boundary she had crossed.
Zhou Yanchuan had thought that respecting her meant shielding her from risks, then waiting for her to make her own choice.
Not until she truly stopped choosing him did he understand.
