Lost in the Nights of the Capital

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◆ College student x powerful Beijing magnate / gentle and resilient x scheming and sinister

◆ The powerful player's careful machinations / possessive pursuit / coercive love

“You tear me apart, torturing me inch by inch in the way only you can.

And somehow I call it love.

It really is love.”

01/

When Zhu Yunzheng was eighteen, she boarded a green train alone, traveling from a small southern town to study at university in Jingzhou.

Jingzhou was a glittering, indulgent world. She knew very well that she didn't belong amid its splendor.

Then she was cornered at the end of a corridor, mud splashing across her skirt, leaving her embarrassed and disheveled.

When she looked up, she saw someone leaning against the railing on the second floor, the curtain of a private room half drawn. With just a few words, he helped her out of her predicament.

Through the swirling smoke, the man's gaze was as still and deep as an abyss.

She learned later that his name was Cheng Yanzhi.

He was the second young master of the Cheng family, the most gentle and proper man in Jingzhou, and the hardest to reach.

The powerful families she carefully navigated and couldn't afford to offend were, to the Cheng family, no more than dust beneath their feet.

02/

Later, Cheng Yanzhi proved mature and understanding, gentle and considerate. Whenever she was in trouble, he always appeared at just the right moment.

He gave her comfort and protection, and the enviable yet scorned “status” of being with him. He showed her a world she'd never known and pulled her out of the mire and up to the clouds, again and again.

Whenever something happened that made Zhu Yunzheng feel as if the sky were falling, Cheng Yanzhi would tell her over and over, “I'm here. Everything you want will be yours.”

So she let herself sink deeper and deeper into the warmth and security he offered.

Yet she knew perfectly well that she was nothing more than an off-the-books fling in his perfect life.

03/

Only later did Zhu Yunzheng learn that what she had thought was fate and salvation was nothing but Cheng Yanzhi's carefully laid plan, step by step.

So she prepared herself for everything, left behind the meticulously crafted illusion without a backward glance, and disappeared completely.

But she never imagined Cheng Yanzhi would be like a patient hunter, interfering with her work, intruding in her life, controlling her friends, driving a wedge between her and her new boyfriend, and using every means at his disposal to force her back to his side.

In an old alley under a torrential downpour, the man gently wiped her disheveled face. His voice held the familiar gentleness she had once known so well, but his eyes burned with a feverish madness.

“Why are you afraid of me? Haven't we always been good together?”

“You liked the old Cheng Yanzhi, the one who was always so gentle with you?”

“That's fine.”

“I can keep pretending. For as long as it takes. Yunzheng, won't you come back to me?”

◆

1. One-on-one romance, happy ending, both leads have only been with each other.

2. The city, administrative divisions, laws, and regulations in this story are fictional and have no connection to reality or any real-world people or places. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Please do not read it as real or read yourself into it.

3. See the author's note in Chapter One for content warnings.

(O >`ω′< )☆

◆ Fox x daddy / greedy and lustful x smiling, calculating old-money man

#A gentleman in public, dark and possessive in private

◆ Daddy issues / age gap / size difference / hunter and prey

01/

Chu Zhi had always been prejudiced against older, wealthy men.

Self-righteous, worldly, respectable on the surface: they all liked to toy with women.

But she was happy to approach them first. Their connections were inexhaustible, their fortunes endless. There was no reason to turn down free money. Nobody would turn down a chance to get rich.

Still, Chu Zhi thought that even by her impossibly picky standards, Zhou Yuqian was a flawless sugar daddy.

He called her his babygirl and told her she was a good girl. He would gently stroke her hair, slowly whet her appetite, coax her into saying daring things, encourage her to express herself fully, and patiently give her everything she asked for.

02/

When Chu Zhi first approached Zhou Yuqian, she hadn't thought much about it.

He was rich, good-looking, passionate in conversation, and generous with his money.

But as they spent time together, she gradually learned that beneath his refined and gentle exterior, he was a complete lunatic: obsessive, dark, extreme, and fiercely controlling. He could even use any means necessary to wipe out his own brothers. More importantly, he loathed betrayal and lies.

Chu Zhi was glad she'd made a spur-of-the-moment decision to create a fake name and identity for herself, along with a tragic backstory about an uncaring father, an unloving mother, elderly relatives to care for, and younger siblings to support, all of it completely unrelated to her real life.

Once she'd accomplished her goal, she took the money and slipped away without a word.

03/

Four years later, amid rain and thunder,

Chu Zhi was driven into a corner with nowhere left to go, and could only flee back to her hometown in the south.

The instant she opened the door, she saw the tall, straight figure of a man standing in the shadows. He seemed to have been waiting for a long time.

He walked up to her with a gentle smile and pulled her rigid body into his arms.

“Good girl, welcome home.”

/ “I hunted her like a madman, trapping her so that my reflection would be the only thing in those beautiful eyes. But when she finally looked at me, all I could do was beg on my knees: My beloved, would you grant me even the smallest scrap of love?”

Theme: Respecting others is also a way of respecting yourself.