A Backer in This Mortal World

[Refined, Fragile Rich Heir x Clear-Eyed, Stubborn Innocent Girl]

[An unconventional financial-support setup | A story of healing | Coming of age | Seven-year age gap]

Xie Zhishu had never had much luck. The one exception was meeting Zhou Yan. He paid her parents two hundred thousand yuan to buy her future from them.

The day she left the mountains, the windshield wipers swept away the mountain shadows. She glanced back at the village sunk in darkness and swore she would never set foot there again.

Later, after enduring every kind of hardship, she finally put down roots beneath the eaves of the city.

Later still, one day when they were together, Xie Zhishu sat in the living room and looked up at him. "Back then, you only had one sentence I'd posted online to go on. Why did you believe me and travel all the way to the mountains alone, carrying cash?"

"No particular reason." Zhou Yan leaned against the sofa. "I had too much money. I felt like throwing it around."

Zhou Yan was taciturn and distant, born high above the clouds and raised among people from circles most could never hope to enter.

Outsiders envied his respectable family background. He was a true favorite of fortune. But only he knew he was merely his mother's carefully polished masterpiece, trapped in a life that kept pulling him under, with no way out.

He thought he'd be stuck in the confines of his predetermined life, trudging day after day through an existence drained of all vitality.

Then Xie Zhishu entered his life.

He couldn't help himself. He fell for her beyond his control.

Bound by their different social positions and age gap, he buried his feelings and always kept his distance.

Until the day something happened. She left after confessing her love, with no intention of turning back. Only then did he finally understand that all his restraint, from beginning to end, had been laughably absurd.

Theme: Salvation exists, but finding it requires passing through the fog of self-perception.