Second chance at love | Faux step-siblings, younger man | Both are each other’s first and only, happy ending | Tsundere heiress x cunning, devoted guard dog
After five years apart, Shu Cen never imagined their reunion would be so awkward.
The family driver had an emergency, so someone else was sent to pick her up. That someone was none other than the man she had once toyed with and then discarded.
Strictly speaking, she should call him her little brother.
Shu Cen’s first instinct was to run, but the man followed in his car without a hint of hurry.
“Why are you running? Feeling guilty?”
“What did you do to wrong me?”
Shu Cen put on a calm front. “Why would I feel guilty? Thanks, dear little brother, for coming to pick me up in this storm.”
But at the words “little brother,” the man glared at her and repeated through gritted teeth:
“Little brother? You’re really laying it on thick.” As if getting back at her, he shot back, “Looks like you’re in a hurry to deny that we used to kiss.”
The atmosphere between them stayed bizarre all the way to the house.
Once they were out of the confined car, Shu Cen relaxed a little.
But the other person apparently didn’t feel the same way, and bolted instead.
Shu Cen didn’t give him the chance. “Little brother, aren’t you getting out? Do you need someone else to ask you?”
That was enough to set him off. “Again? You used to call me little brother at certain times, too. Do you remember when?”
Shu Cen immediately thought of her teenage years, the dim room, and that burning kiss.
Remembering why they had parted, she regained her composure. It would be better for them to keep up the pure brother-and-sister relationship their father approved of.
The first time Shu Cen saw Yu Sheng, the sixteen-year-old stood in the light, beautiful as an angel.
Unfortunately, he was the illegitimate son brought home by the woman her dad kept on the side.
She hated the boy and his despicable mother, and did everything she could to trip them up.
She didn’t know that anyone the eldest Miss Shu disliked would have a hard time at school.
It was a bitterly cold winter when a group of people forced Yu Sheng into a pond, leaving him deathly pale from the cold.
Shu Cen thought she would enjoy it, but instead she was so furious that she kicked the whole group into the pond and dragged them home, soaking wet.
After that, she would always see a handsome, refined boy a few yards away.
When she had company, he never came near. When she was alone, he would trail after her, eyes full of hope.
Then, hesitantly and shyly, he would ask, “Sis, can I ride home with you?”
No one knew when that “Sis” began to mean something different, changing into: “Sis, can I kiss you here?”
The boy’s first love burned fiercely, but her father soon found out, and things got ugly.
In the end, Shu Cen went abroad to study, and that was that.
But years later, the love that had been cut short flared back to life among the sparks.
[To clarify: They are step-siblings with different fathers and mothers, and they are not on the same household register. They have no blood relation.]
Note added on July 13, 2026
Revised on September 4, 2026
Theme: Love is indulgence that crosses the line
