Reverse Seduction

Possessive pursuit // stealing someone else's partner // both fighting to claim the other // brooding, obsessive, and twisted x kindhearted but no pushover

Golden on the outside vs rotten within

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She had ulterior motives all along.

She thought he was just a shameless, spoiled rich kid. Since they each wanted something from the other, she accepted his favor without hesitation and played along, using the opportunity to clear away obstacles. Shen Jixu watched coldly, willingly becoming her blade. He saw through everything, but never said a word.

As soon as the performance ended, Jiang Nan killed the ladder after climbing it and returned to Shanghai that very night.

She couldn't even be bothered to accept his friend request.

Who could have guessed she'd run into him again at her best friend's birthday party, and start writing another chapter with him?

She panicked and tried to flee just as the dance began, but Shen Jixu pinned her in front of the full-length mirror in the lounge. Warm, misty air clouded the glass, and the shadow of their height difference blocked her view.

She couldn't see the expression of the man behind her, only feel the suffocating pressure.

His arm trapped her at her side, his hand slowly sliding up her waist. His low voice was dangerous and teasing as he pressed almost flush against her.

"Jiang Nan, you used me and now you want to run?"

His fingers gripped her chin, forcing her head back. "Who gave you the nerve to come back to Shanghai?"

Only then did Jiang Nan realize that the convenient pawn she'd grabbed to take the fall was the eldest son of the Shen family, Shanghai's dreaded living King of Hell, an untouchable immortal she could neither provoke nor escape.

She took out her phone, hoping to awaken his conscience and beg him to let her go.

"I... you know... I have a fiance..."

Shen Jixu seized her wrist and replied in front of her to the taunting message from that "fiance," who was currently indulging in a life of pleasure. His lips brushed her neck, his breath heavy.

"Nannan, he's of no use to you."

"Choose me instead."

-

The third month after Jiang Nan broke up with Shen Jixu.

A major storm made landfall in Shanghai. Black clouds and violent winds hurled sheets of rain against the windows, thunder cracked, and the river churned.

Shen Jixu watched silver lightning strike again and again, his shoulders gradually sinking.

His racing heart and suffocating panic nearly killed him.

As his consciousness began to fade, he heard the door unlock. An anxious figure was illuminated by the dim light and silver flashes.

"Nannan, don't... don't leave me..."

★Reader's Notes

1. The fiance is a political-marriage arrangement, a three-no product: no feelings, no actual intimacy, and no real relationship. Jiang Nan later personally sends him to prison.

(All stories, including the unmarked ones, default to both leads being sexually inexperienced and having happy endings.)

2. The heroine is not a conventional good person. Read with caution if that's not your thing.

■"The one who loves me, golden on the outside, saves me from the rot within."

■"The moment the piano keys went awry, it was the tremor in which I began to love you."

[Synopsis screenshot saved on 2025.2.23 to Weibo @Jiuqi Paradox]

Theme: Love is not only golden on the outside, but also the salvation found within the rot