Clear-minded, independent historic-building restorer x Controlling, restrained power broker
Historic restoration + family business rivalry + mutual redemption, one-on-one, both virgins, happy ending.
Five years ago, he said, "We're even." She didn't agree.
Five years later, she returned to the country and took charge of restoring his family's old residence, Jiyue Shanfang.
On her first night back, she knocked on his door. "Shen Yanzhi, I've come to collect what you owe me."
At a matchmaking dinner, they both claimed not to remember. Under the table, his fingertip brushed the back of her hand, almost imperceptibly, then pulled away at once.
She thought this was just an old flame's push and pull, a game between the two parties.
Until she saw a line of writing on a beam in the old residence: "Embrace the moon, keep joy hidden; may the years flow in peace."
Then she found an old sketch of herself from her youth in his study.
It turned out he had kept this mountain, this house, and this reunion hidden in his heart for five years.
But the Gu family used a patent to force him into an arranged marriage, a branch of the family switched out the timber and framed her, and the board pressured him to cut the technology division.
Everyone thought she was a pawn.
Until she exposed the Gu family's schemes with a single sentence at the review meeting, identified the switched timber on-site, and foiled the branch family's plot.
In front of everyone, he wrote: "If I ever wrong her, everything I own will belong to her."
She picked up the pen and added a clause: "If mass production of Jiyue is obstructed, the cultural heritage protection fund will receive priority support."
She could restore broken beams and crumbling tiles, and she could also mend the heart he'd hidden away for five years.
