The Short-Lived Best Friend of a Dragon-Blooded Protagonist

(Launching this year) Best Friends to Lovers / Faked Death and Identity Reveal / Redemption / Power Couple

[Cheerful, passionate but obsessive top × Cold but hopelessly lovestruck overpowered protagonist bottom]

In every feel-good novel, there’s always a good buddy playing the supporting role for the male lead.

He comes from a prestigious family, supports the male lead with all his heart, and after his death, lives on in the male lead’s memories.

Qin Su Zhi transmigrates into his favorite male-oriented novel. The System tells him, a fan of the male lead’s career, that:

He needs to play the male lead’s wealthy young friend, build a deep friendship with him, and eventually die in front of him, becoming a major part of the male lead’s life.

*

So, one rainy night, a dashing young man with a sword kills the demon standing in front of the down-and-out male lead.

He smoothly sheathes his sword, grins with wild abandon, and holds out a hand to the filthy male lead.

“From now on, your big brother’s got your back!”

*

Qin Su Zhi has cursed people for the male lead, taken a blade for him, and held him all night when he was at his lowest. He even gives the male lead half his bed.

Watching the cold, withdrawn male lead look at him with ever brighter eyes, Qin Su Zhi feels an indescribable delight rise within him.

He’s been starved of affection since childhood. Being trusted so intently, so wholeheartedly, is a feeling he’s never experienced before.

He’s his favorite character’s very best brother and friend. He can help him climb step by step to a bloodstained throne.

This feels so wonderful.

He thinks this obsessively, never realizing that the male lead’s gaze toward him is unhealthy too.

By the time he comes to his senses, the formerly aloof male lead has successfully burrowed into his chest and refuses to come out.

Qin Su Zhi: ?

What happened to the mighty male lead who was supposed to conquer the world?!

*

No one can stop the male lead from reaching the top, not even the male lead himself.

So when Qin Su Zhi discovers the male lead is willing to abandon his career for him, he has already maxed out his redemption points and cruelly chooses to fake his death.

Of course, he has another reason for doing so.

As long as he dies while they are still brothers at their best, their feelings will remain pure and untainted like amber, beautiful forever.

But when the day of his faked death actually comes, he watches the male lead fight his way through a sea of blood to reach him, hold him in trembling arms, and beg him through tears not to die. His heart still gives a violent lurch.

Without him, won’t the male lead have a better life?

Qin Su Zhi thinks, wiping the tears from the male lead’s cheek before slowly closing his eyes.

*

When he wakes again, Qin Su Zhi has been reborn as the son of a wealthy family in the mortal realm, and looks very much like his former self.

System: Host, you’re awake! Since the male lead’s redemption level plummeted after your last mission ended, you’ll have to play his second dear friend who dies young to complete the story!

Qin Su Zhi: ??

You keep picking on the same person. What am I, some kind of best-friend simulator?!

System: He can’t forget you from your past life. Now that he’s seen you, who looks just like your former self, he plans to take you as his sworn younger brother.

Look, he’s already at your doorstep!

Qin Su Zhi jerks his head up.

The male lead, now the ruler of both the immortal and demon realms, sits in the seat of honor in Qin Su Zhi’s home, chatting merrily with his father.

...It looks like they’re discussing selling him off.

*

The male lead is frighteningly unfamiliar.

He has shed his youthful awkwardness and aloofness. His dark eyes look at Qin Su Zhi, and beneath their icy surface lies emotion he can barely suppress.

“Your Excellency, Daoist Venerable.”

Qin Su Zhi’s heart pounds harder and harder.

He pretends nothing is wrong and smiles at him. “Would you... like to stay for a meal?”

*

Bad news:

Once the male lead turned gay, he never turned back.

Not only has he been hopelessly in love with Qin Su Zhi all along, he built him a memorial shrine, inscribed “My late husband, Qin Su Zhi” on his memorial tablet, and is extremely devoted to sharing a bed with his portrait, like a male ghost has possessed him.

Even worse news:

Qin Su Zhi realizes he’s about to be found out!!!

[Bonus Scene]

Dragged into the wedding hall and inexplicably saddled with a husband, Qin Su Zhi looks gloomily at the male lead. “...I thought we were just becoming sworn brothers?”

The male lead looks at him coldly. “You said we’d be brothers for life. Why did you fake your death and abandon me?”

Qin Su Zhi: “But brothers are brothers! Brothers can’t become cultivation partners!”

The male lead: “Then call me brother.”

Qin Su Zhi: “Brother, ”

The male lead (with a cold expression): “You smell so good.”

Qin Su Zhi: ...Who taught you that?

The male lead: You.

Qin Su Zhi: .

Tsk. Looks like I really will have to take responsibility for my brother for the rest of my life.

Still, it’s not so bad~

[Read Before You Start (Required!)]

1. Handsome, beautiful top × handsome, beautiful bottom. The top is taller than the bottom, and is dominant in bed. Both are strong and get their moments to shine. The story includes both the top pursuing the bottom and the bottom pursuing the top. This is not a harem story.

2. Both top and bottom have plenty of mutual pining. Neither is a perfect character. The top’s love takes an unconventional path, while the bottom’s love is unwavering. Neither is the only one making sacrifices, and neither is a simp. They’re wildly in love and can never be independent of each other. Do not break them up, reverse their roles, or feminize either of them.

Please don’t attack the top or bottom in the comments, or argue over points already explained in the blurb. Thank you for understanding~

Theme: Face your true feelings.