Can I Like You?

[Classic melodramatic angst and catharsis | The love interest isn’t a virgin | Some details have been changed; if you don’t like it, feel free to skip]

When Lu Zhe was seventeen, his father brought home a lover.

The other man was slender and delicate, quiet as a butterfly caught in the rain.

His father pointed at the beautiful young man and said, “Come meet your Brother Ruan Ting. He’ll be living here from now on, so be nice to each other.”

Lu Zhe guessed that, rather than the perfunctory title of “big brother,” what Lu Ze Nian really wanted was another, far more unspeakable name.

For example:

Stepmom.

*

When Lin Ruan Ting was twenty, the Lin family went bankrupt, and his father was hospitalized with a serious illness. Overnight, Lin Ruan Ting fell into the mire.

Looking at his father lying in a hospital bed, he chose to sell himself. He accepted the lifeline extended by the president of the Lu Group and agreed to be his lover for three years.

He thought it would be an ordinary transaction, and that he would be set free when the time was up.

But when he was brought through the gates of the Lu family home and saw the boy looking at him with contempt, he understood that the other man had never intended to let him go.

He was forced to live with the Lu family, becoming a member of the household and Lu Zhe’s “older brother” in name.

The boy hated him.

He would stand coldly at a distance, watching him with mocking eyes.

But when Lin Ruan Ting looked at him, he was always reminded of the younger brother he had lost far too soon. He couldn’t help softening toward the boy and wanting to treat him better.

He knew he was merely projecting his feelings onto him.

But the boy’s gradually softening attitude made him unable to stop hoping.

Until one day.

Standing outside a private room, he heard a familiar voice, thick with drink and laughing carelessly. “You like Lin Ruan Ting? As if he’s good enough for you.”

“He’s nothing but a plaything in my house, beneath my dignity. Don’t insult me.”

Later, Lin Ruan Ting finally managed to escape.

On the night he left, he stood beside the bed of the still-recovering boy, prying the boy’s fingers off his hand one by one. He didn’t look at the despair gradually filling the boy’s eyes, only lowered his own and said, “Don’t fall in love with me.”

“I’m not worthy of you.”

Short-tempered, aggressive wolf-dog hero with a soft heart × cool, beautiful love interest, gentle on the outside and strong within

Please note before reading:

1. This is a classic old-school melodrama. The love interest isn’t a virgin, and it’s a pseudo-stepmother story, so the hero’s father and the love interest do have a relationship in the story. Please don’t read if that bothers you.

2. The hero is an adult when he confesses, and the love interest has already broken up with his father.

3. A melodramatic, angsty story written with abandon. The leads are committed to each other, with no switching or breaking them up.

[Blurb written on 2021/09/09]

★ Please add my modern-day upcoming novel, The Breakup That Brought Us Closer ★

After seeing Shen Yu envy someone yet again,

Shen Yun Hui decided to take a coworker’s advice and meet the person they had set him up with.

Sitting in the restaurant, he calmly said he had no particular requirements for a partner. He only hoped that, if they got together, the other person would take good care of his child.

Because Shen Yu wanted a father who loved him.

Before he could finish, a man who had come up beside him grabbed his hand tightly.

The grip around his wrist was painfully strong.

A familiar, brooding presence pressed close to his ear. “If that’s all you want, why not consider me?”

*

Shen Yun Hui and Huo Zhou grew up together.

But people meet and part as life takes its course.

When Shen Yun Hui’s father changed jobs, Shen Yun Hui moved away with his parents, and the two lost touch.

They met again years later.

Overwhelmed by debt, Shen Yun Hui followed his new employer’s assistant, listening quietly as the assistant explained how to work for the young President Huo, who was gloomy, demanding, and cold.

He never expected to look up and see a familiar face.

The quiet younger boy who used to follow him everywhere had grown into a cold, distant, untouchable man.

Nothing like him.

He was practically in the gutter, willing to do anything for money.

*

Shen Yun Hui put everything into his new job.

But Huo Zhou’s youthful, handsome face kept appearing beside him, unsettling his thoughts.

Huo Zhou was cold, demanding, and blunt.

And yet, he treated Shen Yun Hui well, taking special care of him when he was sick.

Fortunately, the contract for his new job was only for a year.

He didn’t need to worry too much about it.

But on his last night before leaving the job,

Huo Zhou gently pushed open his door.

When he tasted the breath on his lips,

Shen Yun Hui knew Huo Zhou was drunk, but he still couldn’t stop himself from sinking into the moment and spending a night out of control with him.

*

Shen Yun Hui couldn’t bear to see Huo Zhou look at him with disgust once he sobered up, and he didn’t want to be mistaken for someone who would do anything for money and had deliberately seduced him.

He hurriedly packed his things and vanished without a trace.

But several months later,

he went to the hospital because he wasn’t feeling well, only to discover that he was pregnant.

The child who would later be called Shen Yu.

Brooding, obsessive younger hero × gentle, down-on-his-luck beauty

A melodramatic pregnancy-and-flight story, one-on-one romance, bittersweet and sweet

Theme: Life is a one-way road with no turning back