How About Letting Me Love You?

Blurb:

Ye Youying had heard many people say, “That child has had such a hard life...”

But she thought it was all right, really.

Before she turned twelve, she had lived like a stray dog. It taught her to seize every opportunity and gave her the instinct to survive by any means necessary!

But at her grandmother's funeral, the old woman used a favor owed to her to secure Ye Youying an opportunity.

From then on, so many people tried to love her.

*

Ye Youying was adopted by a good family. As she grew up, she developed elegant, pretty features and a dazzling academic record.

But she was precocious, both fortunate and unfortunate. From the bloody examples around her, she learned very early that

Love is so fragile and changeable that it makes people lose their minds.

It can even make them “blindly loyal.”

Of course, it was dangerous. But she was bold, and had nothing at all to lose, so Ye Youying accepted every offer of “love.”

She wanted as much as she could get, hoping to leverage the money, connections, attention, and opportunities behind all that affection...

She was greedy and wanted everything.

*

But trouble struck first. A dispute over property erupted in the household of her adoptive parents, an older man and his young wife. As the Xia family's powerful interests fought for control, the first one pushed out of the running was Xia Yixing, the least competitive of them all.

He was also the only biological child of Ye Youying's adoptive mother.

He happened to know how cold-hearted she had been since childhood, and had always treated her with indifference. That was until the storm over control swept them up and sent the two “weaklings” and “discarded pawns” abroad.

They boarded the same flight overseas and moved into the same apartment building

Xia Yixing became the only adult in their temporary little household, and Ye Youying's de facto “guardian.”

Their days of huddling together for warmth had only just begun.

Her “older brother” Xia Yixing had been exiled and lost his ambition and drive. He had never given himself over to debauchery, but was simply drifting through life...

Since he was the person who had taken care of her the longest and understood her best...

In their tenth year of knowing each other →

Ye Youying took the rare initiative and suggested, “Why don't you let me love you?”

Love changes too easily, so she would seize the initiative first. Could taking charge let her escape the story of being loved?

She didn't know, but she could certainly give it a try.

Author's notes →

① The heroine is greedy and self-interested, not a perfect person, and will have moral flaws.

② Since she is motivated by self-interest, the heroine's romantic feelings may be capricious early on, but this is probably a kind of exploration typical of adolescence.

③ The romance between the leads is a long, slow burn. They are not blood-related, but they do start out as family.

Theme: It's your own life, so of course you should give it your all and overcome every obstacle.