After Our Secret Crush Contract Took Effect

Coming soon: The Guy Sitting Beside Me at the Movie Theater. Airheaded girl x gloomy, ghostlike guy! Blurb below:

◎Secretly in love with her | Contemporary urban setting

◎Carefree and unfeeling x devoted, loyal puppy

Food blogger Zou Jinyue mistakenly posts the dessert shop owner Li Shiqian in a video warning her followers to avoid the place.

To apologize, she visits him and suggests they work together on a clarification video.

Two stunning faces together on screen, and the comments fill with people saying, “They're so perfect together!”

Seeing the views soar, she strikes while the iron is hot and pitches an even bolder idea:

“Let's work together long-term. We can pretend that... you've been secretly in love with me all along. What do you think?”

At first, Zou Jinyue thinks it's a great deal.

Li Shiqian has broad shoulders and a slim waist. He's gentle and thoughtful, handsome and quiet, and an excellent actor!

When he plays a secret admirer, his gaze is so focused she almost believes it herself.

But gradually, things start to feel off.

He knows that in high school, she loved the braised pork from the cafeteria's second window.

He remembers that she's allergic to mangoes.

He can even recite, word for word, an essay she wrote as a student, saying it inspired the name of his shop.

Zou Jinyue keeps telling herself: It's all scripted, all acting!

But she can't stop her heart from racing every time their eyes meet, or her mind from wandering whenever he gets close.

She starts to get scared.

She's afraid she'll mistake the act for reality, and even more afraid that everything about Li Shiqian that makes her heart flutter is just a dream brought to life by the script and his character.

As their contract nears its end, she beats him to it:

“Li Shiqian, let's end this.”

Her words have barely left her mouth when she meets a pair of bloodshot eyes.

The usually composed and gentle man loses control under the dim light, clutching the hem of her clothes. His fingertips tremble, his voice hoarse and broken:

“Don't go...”

“Even if it's all an act... please let me stay by your side.”

-

Zou Jinyue has always believed that their meeting was simply fate.

Until one day, she accidentally knocks a high school yearbook off the shop's bookshelf.

Beside every article about her, the pages are filled with his careful notes.

She turns another page, and a yellowed cake design slips out.

Its edges are curled, as though it has been handled countless times.

In the blank space, she finds his youthful yet resolute handwriting:

“Happy birthday, seventeen-year-old Zou Jinyue.”

“May you be happy and shine forever.”

Only then does she understand:

The cake she tossed aside all those years ago was his youth, never given to her.

The perfect script she thought she had written was a long-planned reunion, set up over his entire adolescence.

🧁 Mini-scene

One morning, Zou Jinyue pushes herself up with an aching body and complains: “Li Shiqian, I hate you! I should've ended our contract ages ago!”

The man in bed rolls over and pulls her into his arms, his voice lazy and indulgent. “Was I not good enough to you last night? I'll rub your sore muscles for you, baby. How about it?”

Zou Jinyue: “...”

Zou Jinyue: “Well... I guess renewing for another three months wouldn't be so bad.”

As soon as she finishes speaking, his lips silence her.

Li Shiqian holds her soft waist tight and murmurs against her lips:

“But I want forever. What should I do?”

I want you to never leave me again.

As for the contract term, let's make it forever.

🍰 Reading Guide 🍰

1. Both are each other's first and only, one-on-one romance, happy ending

2. The hero has been secretly in love with her for years; the heroine realizes it late

3. The hero didn't become a pastry chef entirely for the heroine. The story will explain why

4. There was a misunderstanding behind the heroine throwing away the cake

The Guy at the Movie Theater blurb:

◎Gloomy, ghostlike guy x airheaded girl

◎He's always provoking her 🤗 x she's always holding back 🥵

“Blurb”

On the screen, the rain-soaked kissing scene continues.

The leads' shirts are soaked through and clinging to their skin. They kiss and bite at each other's lips, their passion carrying a hint of forbidden thrill.

Zhong Wei leans back in her chair, staring at the close-up with boredom.

In the corner of her eye, the man beside her, who has been flirting with her for three months, rests his fingertips on the back of his seat and edges an inch closer.

For some reason, she suddenly thinks of Xu Lian.

Their first date also featured a clichéd kissing scene like this. Curled up in his arms, she rolled her eyes and said:

“It's just two people sneaking around and making out. So boring. I'm not jealous at all.”

Zhong Wei sneaks a glance at his profile, only to find him staring at the screen without moving, like a block of wood.

Her spirits sink. This guy really is no fun.

Zhong Wei was the one who ended things later.

When a friend asked why, she casually made up an excuse: “He's no good in bed, and he's so old-fashioned. Dating him wasn't exciting at all. I lost interest.”

In the blink of an eye, they'd been broken up for six months.

-

Zhong Wei comes back to herself, feeling thirsty, and reaches for her cola. At that moment, a hand suddenly shoots out of the darkness and clamps around her wrist.

She goes rigid, nearly crying out.

The cold white light from the screen falls on the man's face beside her, making him look deathly pale. Xu Lian's thumb presses against the mole on her wrist, rubbing it again and again, hard enough that she can't pull away.

This almost indecent way of touching her was what he'd loved most in bed.

Perhaps noticing her startled gaze, Xu Lian slowly turns his head, shifting his eyes from the screen to her face.

“It's been six months,” Xu Lian says with a crooked smile. “Looks like you really like the pure-hearted type.”

He leans closer and grabs her wrist, pressing a long, wet kiss to the corner of her lips. Over her shoulder, Xu Lian meets the astonished gaze of the young man behind her.

“Is it exciting enough? If you still feel something...”

Xu Lian's eyes curve into a smile, like a ghost whispering a tempting invitation:

“...Little Wei, want to give me another try?”

-

Zhong Wei didn't know then that on their first date, the man who stared motionlessly at the movie screen had only one thought in his head:

I want to kiss her.

I want to *her.

👻 Reading Guide 👻

1. One-on-one romance, both are each other's first and only

2. No actions that violate morals or ethics 😋

Theme: The script's fake, but the secret love is real