Su Jiezhou, a close aide to the Crown Prince, was on the verge of a meteoric rise when his colleague, the newly appointed top scholar Yan Qionglin, ran him through in the name of “purging the court of corrupt officials.”
As he lay dying, he finally understood: So that guy wasn’t staring at me every day because he was smitten. He was looking for a chance to kill me the whole time?!
Reborn three years in the past, Su Jiezhou finds himself not only in the body of a burly bandit chief, but face-to-face with the down-on-his-luck scholar Yan Qionglin, version 1.0, on his way to take the imperial exams.
Kill him? Couldn’t do it. Chase him off? He wouldn’t leave.
Su Jiezhou decides to take the indirect route: become sworn brothers! He’ll suck up to the future top scholar every step of the way.
The perfect plan shatters into pieces after Yan Qionglin sneaks a kiss while they’re drunk.
Su Jiezhou puts on a calm face. “Brother Yan, what are we now?”
The other man remains cool as ever. “Brothers. Is there a problem?”
Su Jiezhou is in turmoil. Brothers kissing brothers... That’s normal... right?
He takes a look at his broad, hefty figure in the bronze mirror, then thinks of Yan Qionglin’s refined, noble air...
Well, with a face and body like mine, it’s definitely normal!
Later, he returns to three years in the future. The moment he hears that Yan Qionglin, version 2.0, has come to visit him while he’s ill, Su Jiezhou springs upright like a carp. Is this my reward at last?
Instead, he’s greeted by relentless, ever more inventive attempts to kill him, from land to sky.
Su Jiezhou explodes. “You can’t play like this! I worked like a beast and raised you for nothing?!”
After all his struggles, he returns once more to his bandit body. Trembling, Su Jiezhou raises his sword. He has to kill this ungrateful, good-for-nothing freeloader!
But the other man appears in mourning clothes, the corners of his eyes slightly red, and drops a bombshell: “Juhua, I want to marry you.”
Su Jiezhou is so furious he spits blood. I treated you like a brother, and you treated me like an idiot? Also, do you have some kind of ugly-guy fetish?!
He draws his sword and looks around in despair. “Stab me! I have to fake my death again! Start over! This round has to be a restart!”
Three seconds later, a gust of wind slams the door shut.
Su Jiezhou snaps back to reality and breaks down. “Screw you! That’s not the kind of stabbing I meant!!!”
A hilarious, half-illiterate, ridiculously strong, handsome bottom with a sharp tongue, paired with a gentle, composed top: a scholar and civil official
Reader's Guide:
1. One-on-one romance, happy ending.
2. The protagonist jumps between two timelines.
Theme: I was destined to love you
