The Gamble

Their first meeting goes badly. They stay at the same inn: one is a wanton rake with irresistible allure, the other a cool and aloof martial artist. As luck would have it, the rake mistakes the door and wanders into the martial artist's room.

After crossing paths a few more times, Su Qingyu still trades lives for silver and spends his days carefree, while Jiang Weijin remains upright and righteous, meddling in other people's affairs.

When they meet again, Jiang Weijin is investigating the mysteries of her own birth, only to run into Su Qingyu flirting with someone else.

Jiang Weijin tells Su Qingyu to stop being so frivolous and carefree. Su Qingyu tells her to stop digging into the past. Neither listens: Jiang Weijin keeps searching for answers, and Su Qingyu keeps flirting with people... though he keeps getting interrupted.

Su Qingyu laughs in exasperation. "Why don't we make a wager?"

The wager is this: a few years from now, we'll see who is happier. You, who insists on getting to the bottom of everything, when you reclaim the past? Or me, who drifts through life in a fog and asks nothing of what came before?

In the end, Su Qingyu laughs at Jiang Weijin for losing the wager completely, but Jiang Weijin doesn't look the least bit unhappy. Su Qingyu, on the other hand, is injured, disheveled, and anything but happy. No matter what, Jiang Weijin has won on the face of it. She speaks calmly.

"What if I don't want you to leave?"

Su Qingyu refuses to agree, and Jiang Weijin ignores him and continues.

"You said yourself that you'd honor the wager. As for your freedom... well, you can't beat me now anyway."

Reader's Guide

1v1, both leads are virgins

The setting is so loosely based on anything that it's practically made up from scratch.

The prose isn't especially archaic.

Theme: Striving for a better life