That Bystander Is a Little Strange

[Synopsis]

[Divorced, innocent heiress heroine & young, fatherly, scheming male lead]

Lin Yin noticed that a stranger was a little odd. He kept showing up whenever she was at her most awkward and helpless.

The first time they met, Lin Yin’s husband had been cheating, one of her performers had gotten into trouble, and her father had been in a car accident. The kind stranger repeatedly asked if she needed help.

The second time, Lin Yin realized the kind stranger wasn’t really a stranger. He was the boy next door from her childhood, and Lin Yin’s thoughts went crooked for a moment. She nearly took advantage of her innocent little brother.

The third time, he became a newly signed singer and started openly, reasonably, and shamelessly hanging around her.

Later, Lin Yin realized that he had passed in and out of her life so many times, all without her noticing.

She wasn’t the only one whose thoughts had gone astray. The kind stranger had been plotting for a long time. He’d started earlier than she had, and his intentions were far from innocent.

-

The sordid affairs in Ji Suifeng’s family had been retold in eight hundred different versions. They all boiled down to the same things: his mother supposedly drove the first wife to her death, then took her place; he and his brother had different mothers; the family only pretended to get along, and so on.

When he was young, he could pretend not to understand. As he grew older, he couldn’t keep pretending and couldn’t be bothered to, so he chose to study abroad.

As the years passed, he suddenly realized that the person he couldn’t let go of most was the pampered young cousin in the Qin Yuhang household.

When they were little, she used her age to boss the kids around as they played house, a game she liked. Thanks to his face, he had the good fortune to be chosen as her make-believe husband.

As he got older, whenever he came home for the Spring Festival, he would hide behind Qin Yuhang’s balcony and quietly watch the girl sneak out to the backyard swing for some peace and quiet.

As an adult, he discovered that this older sister had fallen in love and was happily heading toward an engagement.

At a small town in the Kola Mountains, he couldn’t resist going to see her one last time. As luck would have it, he rescued her when heavy snow blocked the mountain roads, then generously helped her find her fiancé again.

He consoled himself in silence: whatever his parents might be like, at least he wasn’t the kind of third party who fought and schemed to steal someone away. Being alone was fine too. Long live the single life!

Later, she was cheated on and appeared in the elevator, miserable and pitiful... How could that bright, sunny young woman he remembered ever have suffered such humiliation?

This time, to hell with being the third party. Even if he had to be the fourth or fifth, he’d take his place at her side.

After all, in this world, apart from her family, no one could love her more sincerely than he did.

Reading Guide:

Older woman-younger man romance, five-year age gap

2026.5.22

Theme: Love is teaching someone how to fish