Crossing the Neon Lights

Gentle, rugged male lead x female lead working far from home. Daily updates at 21:00. Currently updating: What Does It Matter If He's My Brother? Faux-incest / love-rival battlefield. 1. To rent the apartment she had her eye on, Pei Yu steeled herself and lied to the agent, claiming she was “a divorced single mother with a child.” She was an office worker who had moved away from home to make a living, caught up in the rat race of the city of Shanghai. Renting a decent place had become her last shred of dignity. Who could have guessed that when the door opened for the viewing, the man standing there would be Song Xingzhou, the very same man she'd been flirting with on social media just a few nights earlier? Leaning against the doorway, he sized her up and raised an eyebrow, smiling meaningfully. “So the person looking to rent is a single mother with a child?” Her heart skipped a beat. Her mind went blank. Just as she was scrambling for an excuse, Song Xingzhou chuckled. “It's fine. I can pretend I don't know you.” 2. The day they got together was an ordinary day, no different from any other. Pei Yu fell for him first, but it was Song Xingzhou who brought her flowers and formally confessed his feelings. “Then how about handing me those flowers again?” she asked with a smile, looking up at him, unable to hide her delight. “I didn't quite process it the first time.” “Okay.” Song Xingzhou let go of her and solemnly held the flowers out to her. “Miss Pei Yu, please accept these flowers and be my girlfriend.” 3. Their first intimate moment took place on a damp, rainy night. A pipe in the old apartment suddenly burst, filling the place with mist. In the haze, he went to fix the valve in a T-shirt, the lines of his muscles faintly visible in the lamplight. She stared at him, realizing that their flirtation was slipping toward the point of no return. As their breaths mingled, Pei Yu heard herself speak. “Mr. Landlord, don't stop.” “Pei Yu.” His voice was low and hoarse. “I'm going to kiss you now.” She didn't say no. So the next second, he kissed her. “Then tonight... you're mine.” The moon hid behind the clouds. The night grew darker, and darker still. She was like a drop of water set alight, consumed by him inch by inch. 4. Pei Yu had always thought she was just a stranger passing through Shanghai, destined to drift from place to place. Song Xingzhou, on the other hand, was a local, with several properties, a wealthy family, and a career steadily on the rise. He was like an island she didn't dare approach. She was used to weighing her options and planning every step. He had never made her face an uncertain future. Sometimes she still felt uneasy and asked him softly, “Aren't you afraid the gap between us is too big?” Song Xingzhou kissed her forehead and held her tighter, his voice low and resolute. “I'm not afraid you're too wonderful for me. I'm the one who's lucky to have you.” [The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Our love will last until death.] Female marketing manager x power plant engineer What Does It Matter If He's My Brother? Blurb: Shen Qichi grew up in the autumn breezes of Beiping, riding her bicycle after the setting sun and laughing as she said, “Give me forty-nine seconds, and I'll catch it.” She grew up surrounded by warmth, with loving parents and a bright, welcoming world. Until a bone marrow match brought a frail “older brother” into her life. He was a shadow lit by the sun, but afraid to come too close. Lu Yuchen was diagnosed with leukemia at sixteen. Shen Qichi's bone marrow saved his life, but he learned from that moment on that he wasn't a child of the Lu family. She was the family's real heiress. From Monday to Friday, she lived at her old home. On weekends, she called him “older brother.” From the beginning, he knew that the familial affection between them was borrowed. She didn't hate him, but he loved her. Shen Qichi never resented this adopted son for “stealing” her parents' love. She even felt that she had stolen his life from him. She treated him like a brother, with warmth and care, never holding back. But in all those times she called him “older brother,” he had already fallen deeply in love with her, hiding the desire within him. Love and identity were incompatible, a mismatch that could never be resolved. She loved her parents, her game design work, the sunset at the end of the hutong, and even the partner who stood beside her as they developed games together. He was consumed by jealousy, but could only stand beside her as her “older brother.” When she studied abroad, he followed her overseas, smiling as he said, “Your brother's here to see you,” while kissing her to pieces in his dreams night after night. She thought he had let go. But after getting drunk, he broke down and demanded, “Your name is Qichi, but you never stay in my world for even a moment longer.” Her lover betrayed her, then saved her life at the cost of his own. She returned to China with a five-year-old girl, to repay a debt of gratitude, and to bring things to an end. But he thought she still loved that man. Consumed by jealousy, he finally asked with red-rimmed eyes: “You love your parents, your career, and even the man who betrayed you more than you love me. Do you hate me, your fake older brother, that much?” [Your name is carved into my very bones, yet I can only love you as your older brother.] Sunny, real heiress x frail, fake young master [Faux incest | love-rival battlefield] My completed novel: The Heiress Spoiled Me After I Became Paralyzed Theme: Everyone deserves to be loved.