The Cold, Proud Hero Gets Tangled Up with a Clingy Sweetheart

[A calm, reserved, scheming top who starts from scratch after reaching the peak of success in his previous life x a pretty, sweet, pampered bottom]

The Fu family worked in jade processing and lived in comfortable circumstances. Their only child, Fu Nanyu, was as beautiful as his name, like a piece of fine jade.

When he was twelve, a friend of his parents passed away, and Fu Nanyu gained an older brother named Li Jinghe.

Li Jinghe was aloof and didn't say a word during his first three days at the Fu home. Fu Nanyu, however, was always clinging to him.

He wanted Li Jinghe to feed him at meals and coax him to sleep. Even when he was sick, he wouldn't take his medicine unless Li Jinghe stayed by his side.

Li Jinghe grew used to having someone constantly hanging off him. Even if he was about to be late, he wouldn't leave until Fu Nanyu had climbed into the back seat of his car.

Later, their parents died in an accident, and Li Jinghe suddenly fell into a strange illness and slipped into a coma.

Debt collectors blocked the entrance to their home. Fu Nanyu, who had been spoiled all his life, was at a loss, tears welling in his eyes.

Li Jinghe suddenly woke up, signed the IOU with a cold expression, and took all the debts upon himself. Only then could the coffins be carried out.

On the night after the funeral, Li Jinghe told Fu Nanyu, "Come with me."

Fu Nanyu's eyes were still red as he looked up and asked, "Where are we going?"

"Southern Yunnan."

It was the biggest marketplace for jade and jadeite, and the place where both their parents were buried.

"Do you believe people can live another life after they die?" Li Jinghe knelt before the memorial portraits and removed the mourning cloth from Fu Nanyu's forehead. "Ayu, come with me."

Fu Nanyu didn't understand what being reborn meant, but he trusted Li Jinghe.

That night, he followed Li Jinghe and left Haishi for the first time, after living there for eighteen years.

*

The rough-stone market was full of pitfalls. Rivals jealous of Li Jinghe's skill set traps to frame him, while suppliers deliberately raised prices to take advantage of outsiders.

Li Jinghe was a stranger in town, and he had a pretty, young Fu Nanyu with him.

In their eyes, the brothers were easy prey. Plenty of people watched and waited for them to be swallowed whole.

In his previous life, he had succeeded too late. Fu Nanyu had suffered too much alongside him, and was left with lifelong complications that could never be cured. In the end, he died young. Now that fate had given Li Jinghe another chance, he had to make up for every regret from his previous life.

Li Jinghe pawned his parents' belongings. He used some of the money to pay Fu Nanyu's medical bills, some to rent a place, and the rest to buy a stone that no one else had any faith in.

It had a fake outer shell and cracks. Anyone could tell it was a scammer's creation, and the onlookers all thought Li Jinghe had gone mad.

Li Jinghe's expression stayed calm. Cut it.

No one could have guessed that this single cut would change the entire rough-stone market.

*

As a child, Fu Nanyu had been the apple of his parents' eyes. Then, at twelve, Li Jinghe came along and cherished him like his own life.

When the Fu family fell, their friends thought he would never return to their circle. They felt sorry to see such a fine piece of jade fall to the ground, doomed to rot in the mud.

But they never expected Fu Nanyu to return just a few years later, with a higher standing than the Fu family had ever enjoyed, and even more pampered than before.

Fu Nanyu said smugly, "Can't help it. Some people are born to live in luxury."

Li Jinghe, by then a famous figure in the jade industry known as Mr. Li, still knelt as he had when they were children to put Fu Nanyu's shoes on properly. Then he lifted him down from the desk. "That's right. Ayu is destined to live a long, peaceful life, safe and sound for a hundred years."

[Working title]

[Reader's guide] 1. A lightly alternate historical setting, with a timeline based loosely on the 1990s through the turn of the millennium.

2. Entirely fictional. Please don't associate it with real life.

3. A lovestruck couple who are both willing participants.

4. Only one lead is reborn. Both are each other's first love, and both are virgins.

Theme: Persevere and grow stronger.