Unrequited Feelings

Everyone knew that Wen Zhao and Shen Ye would never end up together. The spirited, unrestrained young master of the Shen family had passed through a hundred flowers, but for ten years, only one person had ever truly occupied his heart. Wen Zhao, his official girlfriend in name, had only been able to stay by his side for five years because her features were seven or eight tenths similar to that person's. Shen Ye was very satisfied with Wen Zhao, his contract girlfriend. He had thought of her as nothing more than a substitute he could discard at any time. But after keeping the toy close for five years, he had grown used to having her around. Even when the original returned to the country after ten years and came back into his view, he wasn't particularly eager to let Wen Zhao go right away. That was, until he accidentally discovered the secret behind Wen Zhao's best-known work, Unrequited Love. In the painting, a man wore simple, elegant white clothes. His black hair fell untidily across his brow. His eyes and brows were alluring and rakish, yet his gaze was calm and cold as a deep pool in autumn. The lines of his profile were sharp and striking. Almost everyone took the painting as proof that Wen Zhao was making a public declaration of love to Shen Ye. But no one knew that on the back of the canvas was a line of writing so faint it was almost impossible to see. Shen Ye turned ice-cold all over. The man in the painting had eyes and brows eight tenths like his own. Only then did Shen Ye finally realize: the person she loved had never been him. Much later, he would put on a white shirt like the kind that man loved to wear, disheveled and with a possessive red tint spilling from the corners of his eyes. "If I dress up like him, shouldn't you like me now?" Wen Zhao looked at him calmly, the smile at her lips as ever. "Shen Ye." She enunciated each word. "I advise you not to flatter yourself." [It turned out that he had always been the one flattering himself.] #I treated you as a substitute, but you want to be my husband?# #Substitute vs. substitute: who takes whom seriously?# Tips: 1. One-on-one romance, both leads are each other's first and only. The male and female leads have always loved each other. Their treating each other as substitutes is just a misunderstanding. Whether they're scummy is a matter of opinion. 2. No female rivalry. The plot includes lots of old-school, over-the-top melodrama. The author likes it :) 3. Please don't send unsolicited opinions on the blurb or make false claims about trigger warnings. See the first chapter author's note for the reading guide. Here's another similar upcoming story from my author's page: The Loser Wen Nan caught her fiancé of seven years cheating in bed. She packed up her things and moved out in the middle of the night. When it rains, it pours: the weather forecast had promised clear skies, but a sudden downpour fell from the night sky. She held her soaking wet dog in her arms and looked down, cursing her luck, when an umbrella suddenly appeared over her head. Amid the patter of rain, the man's wrist bones stood out slightly, and the veins on the back of his hand were clear. Dressed all in black, he nearly blended into the night as he looked down at her. Wen Nan stared for a moment, then turned away in embarrassment and sneered. "Did you come to laugh at me?" The umbrella handle was pressed into her hand, still holding someone else's warmth. The suitcases scattered in the distance were picked up, and when the man turned back with them, he was soaked in cold rainwater from head to toe. His voice, too, was distorted by the rainy night. "I came to see what kind of thing you found yourself." * Ten years ago, Wen Nan and Lu Suichuan were famous rivals. They couldn't stand each other and would quarrel whenever they met. In the height of summer when they were eighteen, they lay side by side in the sun. Lu Suichuan raised his sunglasses with one hand, a carefree smile spreading across his handsome face. "Wen Nan, whatever you do, don't fall in love with me." Wen Nan scoffed and turned her face away. Then she tipped her head back, took a swig of ice-cold cola, and narrowed her eyes. "I'll give those exact words right back to you." Later, a senior from her university pursued her relentlessly for three years. At last, amid a chorus of teasing cheers, she became someone else's "match made in heaven." No one knew that on that very day, Lu Suichuan spent the whole night drinking in the empty lot where they had once casually joked that they wouldn't fall in love. There had once been people who said they were made for each other. #The first to fall in love is the loser# Theme: People can overcome fate.