Falling for Her

[Ongoing next door: Pixel-Level Capture]

1

Li Zhengyan is mature, calm, and proper, the undisputed pride of the crowd.

Chu Mengxiao is rebellious and unruly, spoiled to the extreme, and notorious for her bad temper.

Everyone expected two people with nothing in common to fall in love, and everyone expected them to break up.

They meet again four years later in a bright conference room, with a long table between them.

His features are still refined and noble. He carries the composure of a man in power, standing on his pedestal, as untouchable as holy water.

Their eyes meet, then part at once. They act as normally as strangers who have just met.

After the meeting, someone mentions that Chu Mengxiao has a new boyfriend. The two of them have built their careers together overseas, and everyone knows how happy they are.

He shows no particular reaction.

2

Having reached his current position, Li Zhengyan is used to being in control.

He controls his career, his relationships, and all his desires.

He ought to follow the same course with Chu Mengxiao.

He certainly won't do anything immoral for her.

Until he sees her serene face again, her eyes clear as autumn waters, and watches her walking side by side with another man.

He suddenly realizes how laughable his earlier thoughts were.

She has long since become a part of him, etched into his very bones, impossible to abandon.

The moment he sees her, his obsession grows wildly like weeds, impossible to hold back.

He knows he shouldn't, yet can only watch himself struggle,

while falling for her all the same.

**

Not long after returning to the country, Chu Mengxiao gets involved with Li Zhengyan again.

She's really fallen for him, she thinks.

She kisses him on the sofa, the scent of alcohol mingling with his.

Between ragged breaths, she hears his cold laugh.

"Sneaking around with your ex like this, aren't you afraid your current boyfriend will find out?"

She lowers her head with a coquettish smile and whispers wickedly in his ear, "Not at all."

"I like the thrill of having an affair with you."

The truth can't stay hidden forever. One day, Li Zhengyan finds out that she never had a current boyfriend in the first place.

Perfectly calm, he pins her against the floor-to-ceiling window.

His eyes half-lidded, one broad hand clamped around her slender wrists, he listens expressionlessly as she pleads.

He only wants to control every part of her.

[The male lead is not truly a cheater, and the female lead did not deliberately set him up or deceive him. She simply went along with things. Please don't apply this to real life.]

[Rekindled romance, both leads have no prior sexual experience, happy ending]

[Strong male lead, female lead is no pushover.]

[CEO x Fashion Designer]

-

Pixel-Level Capture

Miao Yin attends the birthday party of someone she's in a flirtation with. At the table, she runs into a yellow-haired guy who has it in for her.

He wins a game and grins as he makes her drink six shots of hard liquor.

The one who stands up for her is the cousin of the man she's flirting with, a young man named Han Yan.

Han Yan is upright and proper. Though a little younger than her, he's already making a name for himself in satellite remote sensing and is exceptionally intelligent.

Against someone like him, the yellow-haired guy gets thoroughly trounced and ends up drinking who knows how much liquor.

She thinks she and Han Yan will never cross paths again, until the next day, when she gets a call: her mother has found love again and has a new boyfriend.

That boyfriend is none other than Han Yan's father.

Overnight, she becomes Han Yan's stepsister, at least in name.

Rich people's relationships are always complicated. Miao Yin doesn't want to get involved. She just wants to make money.

But she ends up arguing with Han Yan countless times, and the way he looks at her changes from hostile to increasingly strange.

That is, until she accidentally opens the room he never lets anyone else enter.

Her photos are plastered all over the walls. In a drawer lies a stack of satellite remote-sensing images, clearly documenting her movements whenever she isn't home.

Miao Yin's scalp goes numb.

2

After discovering Han Yan's secret, Miao Yin has a huge fight with him.

She threatens to sever their sibling relationship and never speak to him again for the rest of their lives.

Han Yan seems unusually calm. He apologizes for what he's done, but just before they part, he says something strange: "Will you come looking for me?"

Her career is taking off, so Miao Yin doesn't dare pay him much attention.

She thinks the matter is behind them, but then she suddenly gets word that Han Yan has gone missing while conducting field research. An investigation reveals that he cut off contact with everyone himself.

Based on what happened over the past two days, Miao Yin realizes he did indeed leave a tracking device that only she could find.

When she brings people to find Han Yan in the snow, he's warming himself by a fire, looking up at her with wet, dog-like eyes.

Relieved, she quickly turns furious and slaps him.

He grabs her wrist. His frostbitten fingers press against her warm skin. His voice is utterly obsessive, though a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Sis, I knew you couldn't leave me alone."

He won his bet.

Han Yan is a prodigy. To everyone else, he's proper, composed, and calm.

Only Miao Yin knows he has a psychological disorder. His feelings for her are obsessive, extreme, selfish, even twisted.

And yet his passion for her will never die out.

#Reader's Guide#

1. Both leads have no prior sexual experience. Their age gap isn't noticeable, but the male lead is immature when it comes to relationships, and so is his sister, so they argue a lot.

2. As the blurb says, the male lead's view of love is unhealthy, and so is the female lead's. Healthy relationships matter, of course, but twisted love is just so compelling. Every stage of their relationship involves major arguments, pent-up frustration, emotional turmoil, and a dark, tangled bond. If that's not your thing, run.

3. "Pixel-level" refers to the basic unit of satellite remote-sensing images.

Theme: Learning to love after growing up