Like a Fish in a Net [Girls' Love Campus]

[Like a fish caught in a net, it may swim far downstream, slip free for a moment, only to be caught again., The Sutra of the Original Vows of Ksitigarbha]

GB, no cheating, both leads are each other's only partners; one top, four bottoms. The setting is so far removed from reality it might as well be another world. Every detail exists to serve the story.

An unyielding, no-nonsense, genius girl with nerves of steel x a soft-and-hard-to-handle, fake school bully, artsy boy

Gear x Shakespeare

Zheng Zexin x Zhou Ziqi

Zheng Zexin considers herself as ordinary as the countless students hoping to settle in the capital. As for the rich young masters who pop up all over Beijing, at most she thinks of them as potential future bosses.

That is, until the most brazen and arrogant rich kid at Hanzhang High becomes her desk mate. Fights, skipping class, sleeping through lessons: his record is well documented.

His most infamous and talked-about feat was barging into another school during class and flipping over a student's desk right in front of their teacher.

Zheng Zexin doesn't want to get dragged into trouble, so she closes her eyes. They really need to start cracking down on crime in schools...

*

Two weeks into the school year, a certain famous troublemaker has skipped school for two weeks straight.

Then, one day, he makes a rare appearance and gets along just fine with Zheng Zexin for two whole weeks.

After handing in her English exam early during the monthly tests, Zheng Zexin is stopped by a friend from Class One next door. “What's that rich kid like? Is he really hard to get along with?”

Zheng Zexin replies, “I don't know him. We've never met. It has nothing to do with me. I'm just an ordinary student, worlds apart from them. Learning about them would be a waste of time.”

The moment she finishes speaking, a clear, pleasant voice sounds from behind her, amusement lacing its feigned confusion. “Worlds apart? What does that mean? I don't get it.”

The boy is tall and slender, with broad, straight shoulders and features so exquisitely sculpted they seem favored by the heavens. He's still youthful, but the beginnings of sharper lines are already visible. Standing beside her, he wears his uniform neatly, yet his posture is lazy, giving off an air of privilege and aloofness that makes him impossible to miss.

People in the hallway keep sneaking glances at the three of them, making it impossible to ignore their attention.

His impossibly beautiful eyes settle on Zheng Zexin, carrying a teasing, almost-smile. “Desk mate, do you know what it means?”

Zheng Zexin: “...”

Then comes the summer after the college entrance exam. Zhou Ziqi returns home for his eighteenth birthday. In the middle of the night, Zheng Zexin gets a call summoning her over to feed the cat. The moment she opens the door, a figure corners her and wraps his arms around her.

His familiar scent surrounds her, damp from his shower.

He grips her chin firmly and smiles as he presses his forehead to hers.

“Zheng Zexin, you've got some nerve. You keep saying we're worlds apart and pushing me away, but you wrote down a countdown to my eighteenth birthday in your notes. Were you planning to make your move once I came of age?”

Zheng Zexin says nothing.

The young man chuckles softly and buries his face against the side of her neck. His voice is quiet. “Fine. I agree.” He places Zheng Zexin's hand on his waist, his tone turning suggestive. “I'm an adult today. Want to see what you're getting? I'll be very obedient...”

*

Zheng Zexin knows that once she gives in to his good looks, she's in for big trouble.

During her first year of college, just after finishing a full day of classes in her major and before she can catch her breath, she learns that a certain young master has dropped out to retake the college entrance exam.

Zheng Zexin: “???!!!”

Young Master Zhou doesn't want to be far from his girlfriend, so he buys an apartment near Zheng Zexin's school to study on his own and asks her to tutor him, offering several times the going rate.

But somehow, their tutoring sessions always end up in bed.

At her wit's end, Zheng Zexin decides he needs to get his act together and sends him straight to a cram school in Hebei, supposedly the strictest one around, with the tightest schedule and mandatory dorm living.

She really has guts, sending a pure-blood Beijing aristocrat to retake the exam in Hebei.

A few days later, missing his girlfriend, he breaks out and runs to Zheng Zexin's school. To her astonishment, he straightens his lips and explains expressionlessly, “I'm free.”

“No,” his STEM-minded girlfriend replies, impervious to all persuasion. “You're breaking the rules.”

This is the first time she's encountered a young man so sweet and clingy that she has no idea what to do with him.

The blurb has been changed, but the story itself is unchanged: school life in the first half, city life in the second.

A heroine who only gives in to gentleness, yet keeps getting swept off her feet by her partner, and is a sucker for a pretty face x a flirtatious, secretly smitten hero who comes on strong but is easy to fluster, and always says outrageous things

168 cm x 185 cm

P.S. 1. This is a fictional setting. The college entrance exam rules differ from reality, and every detail exists to serve the story. Don't scrutinize them too closely.

2. The hero will devote himself entirely to studying later on and won't waste a year. There's more to the incidents mentioned in the blurb, and he will face consequences for his actions. The bad guys will also be brought to justice.

3. There's more to the fake school bully than meets the eye. The hero paid for that reputation.

4. A story about a young couple growing up, both with their own flaws. They only get together as adults.

5. The heroine repeated a year in seventh grade so she could take the college entrance exam in Beijing, making her a year older than the hero.

6. The hero is a flirtatious, secretly smitten type who comes on strong but is easy to fluster.

Coming soon: Who's Ever Heard of a Lazybones by Day and Study Streamer by Night? (GB)

Important: GB, no cheating, both leads are each other's only partners. The woman is eight years older than the man.

Zhou Qinglin's version:

An accident leads Zhou Qinglin to take in her future arranged-marriage partner, Cheng Huiyu, and they naturally end up living together. Cheng Huiyu has just turned eighteen and is about the same age as her students. Zhou Qinglin treats him like a little brother and pats him on the shoulder. “Don't worry. My family has a great atmosphere for studying, and no one will disturb you.”

The newly adult young man lowers his lashes, presses his lips together, and softly replies, “Mm.”

He looks as pitiful and innocent as can be.

Around this woman eight years his senior, he seems awkward and a little afraid.

She blinks, deciding it's time to show off the charms of an older woman. “I know lots of college admissions counselors. Once your exam results come out, we'll get proper advice and apply to universities in another province, far away from here. Out of sight, out of mind. And we can't waste a single point.”

The young man doesn't look any happier.

Well, being abandoned by your family really does hurt. Trying to lighten the mood, she comforts him. “Hey, kid! Cheer up. If you can't go back to the Cheng family, doesn't that mean you can start your own family tree?”

She doesn't mention that once the Zhou and Cheng families have completely severed ties, she'll end the engagement and set him free.

What place does an arranged marriage have in the modern age?

If those teachers found out, they'd call her a feudal relic. The politics teachers might even stay up all night whipping up a PowerPoint to condemn her.

One day, Zhou Qinglin asks Cheng Huiyu to download some year's mock exam papers from a particular place onto her cloud drive. Then she suddenly remembers the two time bombs on there: GB videos for women that she's watched so often they're practically worn smooth.

Zhou Qinglin is afraid of nothing, but at that moment, she panics.

She doesn't want her older sister to scold her for corrupting an innocent young man.

By the time she rushes home, held back by the slow download speed, the computer is already black. Cheng Huiyu calmly hands her the flash drive with the files copied onto it.

He didn't see them... right?

Zhou Qinglin decides to play dumb.

Until one day, after a dinner party, she drunkenly calls Cheng Huiyu and tells him to come pick her up.

When they get home, the alcohol has slowed her thinking. She answers a call from a suitor, who asks her to go out for dinner. She wants to go back to her room to turn him down, sparing her childhood friend any embarrassment.

The moment she pulls her hand from Cheng Huiyu's, the world flips. He grabs her by the waist and pins her against the door.

Her phone falls onto the carpet, her name still coming from the speaker.

The cool, handsome young man lowers his eyes, his fresh, woodsy scent drifting beneath her nose. “Qinglin, who are you trying to go see? If they can, then I can too.”

The next day, she sees Cheng Huiyu's bitten, bruised lip and forces a smile. “Um... well, you're an adult now, and neither of us is married. As long as we don't tell anyone, your chastity is still intact...”

Cheng Huiyu's version:

Cheng Huiyu, the disowned son of the Cheng family, lost both his parents when he was young. He grew up dependent on others and was constantly bullied.

Just as he is working hard to escape the Cheng family, the Zhou family picks him for an arranged marriage, despite him not being on their list of candidates.

When he sees her profile, he realizes she's his childhood crush: the older girl next door.

He doesn't know whether she hates the arranged marriage, but luckily, he's only eighteen and not yet old enough to marry. They're only engaged, so she can walk away at any time.

Still, he can't help hoping, even for a marriage that seems like a joke.

An accident leads him to move into Zhou Qinglin's home.

She has already forgotten him and doesn't approve of the marriage either. She's only looking after him because it's her duty.

Well, maybe that's for the best...

Another sunny day.

While tidying her room and looking for a hair clip, he accidentally discovers her secret: a whole room full of physics exam papers, and sheets of scratch paper covered in dense calculations...

He thinks of the time he was preparing for the college entrance exam, staying up late to watch physics livestreams. At the end, the stream moved on to casual chatting.

As he corrects his mistakes, a clear female voice reaches his ears:

“You don't need to know who I am or remember me. I'm just a crutch on your road to learning.” Her voice carries a smile. “If you really want to thank me, then study hard and serve your country! Good luck on the college entrance exam! You're the flowers of our motherland!”

So his moon had been by his side since his first year of high school.

And she'd saved him again and again.

A seemingly unemployed, lazybones heroine with lofty ambitions as a study streamer x a sensitive, pitiful little lamb in the beginning, later a confident, innocent coding whiz

P.S. 1. GB, no cheating, both leads are each other's only partners.

2. The woman is 26, the man is 18, an eight-year age gap.

3. The heroine is oblivious, a little slow on the uptake, optimistic, cheerful, and easygoing. She only sees the hero as a little brother.

5. The heroine's room is messy but organized, according to her. She often loses things, and the hero keeps everything tidy. Being a good housekeeper is just one of the many things the hero brings to the relationship.

4. A story about healing. While the heroine is living her own life, she happens to pick up the hero, clean him up, let him bask in the sun, and save him.

[You are the new generation of our motherland, its flowers. May you bloom across our vast and beautiful land.]

Theme: Accept this world, love it, and belong to it.