Shouldn't Have Returned

How much can someone sacrifice for the feelings they had in their youth?

Lin Fusong had his answer ready in the hospital room on his nineteenth birthday.

After being resuscitated, he learned that this world was an action-adventure novel, and his first love's younger brother was an antagonist, destined to die as an obstacle in the male lead's path.

Lin Fusong wanted to do something for his younger brother. The boy's tragedy had started because of him, and Lin Fusong owed Xu Qiuze a brother. He would personally be Xu Qiuze's brother, protect him, and make sure he didn't become the antagonist from the original novel, consumed by jealousy of the male lead's happiness.

During the time his parents locked him up in a psychiatric hospital, he kept trying to take his own life, but every attempt failed.

The wind on the rooftop was chilly. It was the place closest to the sky.

Just as Lin Fusong stood at the edge, ready to jump, the doctor ran up beside him with a phone call. A young child spoke from the other end: "...Big brother? Is that you? I'm having such a hard time at the orphanage. Will you come get me?"

What he wanted had appeared. Lin Fusong stepped back from the rooftop and accepted his parents' arrangements, following the path they wanted for him. He did everything he could to pave the way for that child.

Lin Fusong had high hopes for his younger brother, until one day a familiar call came to his phone. "Big brother, help me." He had completely deafened one of the male lead's already hard-of-hearing ears. "Big brother, you'll help me, won't you?"

"Here's one million in compensation. If you have any other requests, tell me, and I'll do my best to meet them." Lin Fusong took a card from his pocket and set it on the bedside table.

The man sat up, the covers slipping to reveal a body like his first love's. Lin Fusong was dazed for a moment. Then he saw the male lead take his hand and slowly write, stroke by stroke, in his palm: I want to live with you.

Even the calluses on his hands were exactly like his first love's.

And so...

Another person joined this tangled web of love and hate.

Or did he?

-[Today is my 37th attempt at dying. I think I've become a monster, a monster that can never die.]

-[I understand now. I can't die because the male lead exists. I'm the philosopher's stone on his path of growth. Without me, he can't grow.]

-[When I come back to life, I return to the previous day. Maybe I can make use of my own death...]

-[The original novel isn't entirely true. I can't believe everything it says.]

It should be an open ending. There is no main gong, so read it as a non-monogamous story.

The gong is sexually inexperienced; the shou isn't. The shou slept with his first love when he was eighteen.

The shou is a golden-haired mixed-race beauty who attracts everyone's attention and has severe dissociative identity disorder. The other gongs aren't doing much better mentally.

Different people at different times bring different flavors. The pairings are roughly as follows.

First love: sunny, cheerful romantic x fragile, beautiful sun.

First love's younger brother: clingy, brought-up-to-be-your-love interest x gentle sister-in-law who plays both big brother and mom.

Childhood friend: gentle daddy type x clingy, avoidant type.

Male lead: loves-and-hates, stubbornly deaf-in-denial type (cold-faced underwear-washing master) x "You're an idiot, but you're perfect as my stand-in."

Puppy: aloof to everyone else, warm toward the shou, and bad with words x a flirtatious but neurotic dream lover.

Too lazy to write the rest.

A melodramatic story about a bunch of lunatics tormenting one another and trying their hardest to make their relationships better, only to ruin everyone's lives.

This may kill you with angst. If you don't like it, please leave.

A self-indulgent work focused on Song's love and hate.

An utterly irresistible, universally adored shou. At heart, this is about Song learning to accept himself as he pursues love.

Theme: Love life