There's No Escape

[Complete] I'll make occasional edits to fix typos~

[My new novel, The Tenth Year, is now available: #The Second Male Lead Takes the Lead#]

1. When Ming Yao was a senior in college, she hadn't yet been beaten down by society. She casually posted an original comic online, and it suddenly became a hit.

She made a little money.

Money went to her head, and she set her sights on the aloof flower on a high peak in her department.

The aloof flower had countless admirers. The waiting list just to pursue him stretched into the year after next. To get his attention, Ming Yao staged a rather clumsy hero-saves-beauty scene.

The result was just what she wanted: the aloof flower fell for her.

She heard that the aloof flower's family was very poor, and that his father had paid for his college education by collecting junk. Ming Yao helped him out financially often during that period.

Later, an accident turned her from a little rich girl into an impoverished college student in debt.

The two of them had no choice but to end their relationship.

That day, she came clean to the young man. It was the first time she'd seen his eyes turn red.

He was probably reluctant to let go of a little rich girl like her, someone who had little money but plenty of swagger. After all, no one else was as generous as she was.

To make a dignified exit, she specially chose the day the young man returned to campus for an exam to move out of their love nest. To show how generous she was, she even renewed the rent for him for three more months.

2. When they met again, she had moved to a new company. The company had just landed a major project and was holding a celebratory banquet.

At the banquet, she met the young master, Cen Lizhou, whom her colleagues had been telling her about: cool, unmatched, and worth over a hundred million.

Ming Yao glanced at him. Wasn't he the debt she'd impulsively incurred a few years ago?

The morning after the banquet, Ming Yao woke up in bed.

There was someone beside her.

Ming Yao looked at the man's familiar face.

In a panic, she blurted out:

"I'm broke now!"

New novel blurb:

After Tang Yanan broke up with her boyfriend of ten years, her friend of over ten years, Tan Jishu, turned around and confessed to her.

The earnest look on her friend's face struck Tang Yanan as utterly absurd.

And just like that, the person Tang Yanan had planned to register her marriage with was replaced by Tan Jishu.

-

For the past ten years, he had watched the woman he loved fall in love with someone else and kiss him.

All he could do was stay by her side as her friend and an onlooker.

Then one day, fate gave him a chance.

So Tan Jishu reached out and seized it without hesitation.

Tang Yanan had always thought Tan Jishu didn't love her, and that he married her only because of their ten years of friendship.

Until one day, she found an old photo album on Tan Jishu's bookshelf.

Tang Yanan had one just like it.

It held the whole story of her youth.

But when she opened Tan Jishu's album, every photo inside was of her.

It turned out that someone really could love another person quietly for ten years.

Content warnings and notes:

1. The male lead has had previous sexual partners. Readers who prefer otherwise, please proceed with caution.

2. Marriage first, love later (from the female lead's perspective only).

3. This should count as a story where the second male lead takes the lead.

4. After they marry, the male lead will have a few little schemes of his own.

Premise: Work hard and serve society