After Being Raised by a Gentle Top

[The full story has a happy ending. Please support the official version! If you buy the whole book, please leave a five-star review. Thank you!] Coming next: The Son-in-Law Raises His Little Husband and Addicted to Pheromones. Please add them to your collection! Sweet-and-sour coming-of-age romance: [Cool shou x gentle gong = bittersweet unrequited love x age gap x intense push and pull] When Lin Jian was eight, his family was struck by disaster, and twenty-year-old Shen Ke brought him to the Shen family estate. Shen Ke was gentle and rational, and balanced strictness with kindness when raising a child. Lin Jian stayed by Shen Ke's side for ten whole years. Everyone knew he looked up to his uncle as if he were a mountain, but no one knew that an unspeakable, forbidden obsession had taken root over all those years of companionship. He raised him, and he fell in love with him. On the night of his eighteenth birthday, usually quiet and reserved Lin Jian gathered his courage and asked Shen Ke: "I'm already eighteen. Is there really no chance for us?" Shen Ke sighed softly and gave him the gentlest, most rational answer. "No matter how old you are, you're the child I raised. You're family." Later, Lin Jian left for five years without a word. When they met again, Lin Jian had tucked away all his lovesick fantasies and obediently kept up the appearance of being "family." But Shen Ke looked at the young man before him, his gaze shifting slightly, and gave a self-mocking smile. "I never thought I'd be this old and still have to learn how to court someone all over again." Lin Jian: ... Who are you courting? Uncle, didn't you say we're family? Later Shen Ke asked with a smile, "Tell me, what made you willing to say yes to me?" Lin Jian kept his expression cold, his ears burning as he answered stubbornly, "Courting someone isn't easy. I saw how old you are and worried you wouldn't be able to handle it. Is that not allowed?" Shen Ke nodded thoughtfully. "All right." Later still With the corners of his eyes reddened, Lin Jian buried half his face in the pillow and gritted out, "That's not what I meant when I said you couldn't handle it!" Shen Ke's warm, low laughter brushed his ear. His coaxing voice was slightly hoarse. "I'm old. I misunderstood." "Besides, I'm twelve years older, not twelve inches..." "Be good. Don't be scared." "..." #Family, and also lovers# #My world was once a wasteland of ruins. Your love rebuilt it, and the rubble became a city of joy.# #My burning, secret love bloomed into a quiet flower amid the dust.# Content warnings: The story is told chronologically from childhood, with a realistic style, a slow and steady pace, and a somewhat slow burn. The main characters are not related by blood and are not on the same household register. There is no legal adoption or foster relationship of any kind, and their romantic involvement begins after they are adults. Good-faith discussion is welcome; writing advice is not. No need to announce if you're dropping the story. Until we meet again, if fate allows. Coming next: The Son-in-Law Raises His Little Husband Slow-paced daily life √ steady development √ pure sweetness, no angst √ childhood friends √ countryside romance √ Shen Qingzhou lost his father at three and his mother at eight. Frail and sickly, with a dirt-poor household, he was known throughout the surrounding villages as the pitiful young man. Before she died, his widowed mother wanted to arrange a marriage for him with a son-in-law who would marry into their family. But after the matchmaker looked high and low, she finally brought back a little wolf cub only a few years older than the sickly boy. Matchmaker: There are only two mu of barren land, not enough for a betrothal gift or a dowry. You'll have to make do. At least he'll be company for the boy as he grows up! The little wolf cub hardly spoke and had a gloomy look in his eyes. Anyone who saw him felt uneasy. The sickly boy: Is this my live-in husband? QAQ At the dinner table, Little Qingzhou watched the boy across from him wolf down buns and slurp his porridge, so worried he could have cried Three buns and a bowl of porridge in one meal? Life was already hard enough, and now feeding him would make it even harder! After hesitating for a long while, he pushed over the half bowl of porridge he had left, his voice timid. "Here... you can have this too. Eat your fill." After all, the family was counting on him to work those two mu of land. QAQ Gradually, the villagers who had been waiting to laugh at the two boys realized that although the little wolf cub who married into the Shen family was gloomy and fierce, he treated the sickly boy wonderfully. Year after year, he cared for him in every possible way, and eventually even sent him to school and paid for his studies! Later, one opened a village school and a clinic, while the other opened a tavern and a money house. Before long, they had opened branches right beneath the Imperial Capital! Once their lives improved, there were always people with ulterior motives who wanted to arrange another marriage for Shen Qingzhou in order to curry favor with the rich. Li Xingchuan smiled inscrutably, his eyes deep and unreadable. "I've been married into the Shen family for fifteen years. Now that Qingzhou wants to take a new husband, is he going to divorce me?" Shen Qingzhou: I'm not divorcing you! Don't, don't make things up! Later, their son and daughter once asked Shen Qingzhou what their usually stoic father had been like as a boy. A gentle, refined smile appeared in the young master's eyes as he recalled the past. "Your father didn't talk much when he was young, and he ate a lot. One meal for him was enough to feed me for a day." "He swallowed coarse buns and plain porridge, but the egg we got once every three days? He never touched it. He always left it for me." "He was an incredibly gentle person." [I grew up alongside you, weathered every storm with you, and made the ordinary comforts of life the sun, moon, and stars in my heart.] [You gave me a place to shelter and a warm bowl of food. In return, I'll give you a peaceful life, year after year.] Frailty and intelligence (early) x gentle refinement (later) shou vs. quiet and voracious (early) x fierce and capable (later) gong Coming next: Addicted to Pheromones [Frail, fake-world-weary cutie x SSS-rank, truly misanthropic Alpha who can't say what's on his mind = intense push and pull + relentless coaxing + sweet and sour HE] Lin Shi is an Omega born with a congenital weakness, liable to drop dead at any moment. Pale and frail, gentle and harmless, he was taken into the Fu family by the Alliance's capital at the age of ten. The Fu family carefully cared for and treated him, while providing his useless father, weepy mother, strong-willed sister, and broken family with years of comfort and luxury. All because Lin Shi was raised as a "medicine" for the Fu family's young master. The Fu family's second young master, Fu Zhiyao, is an SSS-rank Alpha in the Alliance. His pheromone structure has a 98% instability rate. They say that after an Alpha of his exceptional rank reaches adulthood, he experiences a rut almost every day, teetering on the edge of losing control of his pheromones. As a result, he's repressed and irritable, and can turn violent and twisted at the slightest provocation. Though Lin Shi's pheromones are so faint they're almost scentless, their stability rate is over 98%, making him perfectly suited to soothe and calm the volatile frenzy of this exceptional Alpha. After living with the Fu family for seven years, Lin Shi met eighteen-year-old Fu Zhiyao for the first time. The haughty, cold young Alpha lounged on the sofa. The black diamond stud in his left ear gleamed a deep red in the night, and his brow furrowed irritably as he entered his rut. Lin Shi approached cautiously and asked, "Do you need me to release some pheromones?" He had never forgotten that he was a "medicine." The next second, Fu Zhiyao threw him out of the room without mercy. Whenever Lin Shi tried to approach Fu Zhiyao while his pheromones were out of control, all he ever received was a look of disgust and irritation, along with impatient orders to "Get out" or even "Stay away from me." Until one day, Lin Shi asked him, "Is there any way to cure you completely?" Fu Zhiyao took off the sparkling diamond stud in his left ear and advanced step by step, his face full of disgust. "A permanent mark. Want to try?" Lin Shi, who had never experienced heat, froze in place. Only later did he understand that the Alliance's capital saw him only as Fu Zhiyao's "miracle drug." He had to be at Fu Zhiyao's side at all times, there for the taking. Even if he were permanently marked, he could only remain forever in the shadows, forbidden from having the slightest emotional connection with that SSS-rank Alpha. And each exasperated "Stay away from me" from Fu Zhiyao was really telling him, as he prepared to step into the abyss: Run. Later Fu Zhiyao, now free and alone, found the Omega who had disappeared for four years and gently held him in his arms. He kissed the pale, flushed gland tenderly, again and again, and asked, "Why aren't you releasing pheromones anymore?" The softer his voice, the more dangerous it sounded. Lin Shi met the Alpha's dark gaze and, resisting the itch at the back of his neck, struggled to answer: I can't. I'll get pregnant if I go into heat. QAQ Theme: Growing up in darkness, love lights the way ahead.