Depending on Each Other to Survive

[The next novel is I'm His Dad [Reborn]. The blurb is at the bottom.] In the summer of 1999, Yan Hua met Jiang Ye for the first time at a hospital. Yan Hua's father and Jiang Ye's mother, a middle-aged couple, were in a car accident, each leaving behind a son. Ten-year-old Jiang Ye tugged at sixteen-year-old Yan Hua's clothes and pleaded pitifully, "Big brother, can you please not send me away?" At the time, Yan Hua was rebellious and unruly. He firmly refused, then added coldly, "I'm not your brother." Half a year later, the year was drawing to a close. In a deserted alley, Jiang Ye curled up in a corner while a group of thugs bullied him. Seeing how pitiful he looked, Yan Hua couldn't help stepping in to save him. At first, he only meant to buy him a meal, then send him packing. But their similar fates, their shared misfortune, the scars covering Jiang Ye's body, and the seventeenth-birthday gift made Yan Hua soften in spite of himself. A flicker of compassion grew into years of relying on each other. Jiang Ye was far more obedient than Yan Hua had imagined, aside from being clingy to an excessive degree. Until one night, after Jiang Ye had come of age, he got drunk. Leaning against the railing as the evening breeze ruffled his hair, he looked at the person across from him with a sneer. His voice held none of its usual meekness as he brazenly admitted through his drunken haze, "So what if I like Yan Hua?" Yan Hua was right behind him and heard every word, clear as day. And that wasn't all. Even their chance reunion all those years ago had been a carefully planned ploy to make Yan Hua feel sorry for him. Yan Hua thought he'd taken in a poor little rabbit, but in truth, it was a venomous snake that wanted to devour him whole. * At first, Jiang Ye only wanted to act obedient and well-behaved so he could find someone to rely on and escape his birth father's abuse. But Yan Hua gave him too much love and treated him too well, making him smug and spoiled, and awakening feelings that would never fade. He had always been a despicable, greedy person. He wanted all of Yan Hua's love. [Cold and distant to outsiders, warm and beautiful on the inside, the shou x seemingly innocent and pitiful but actually scheming and vile gong] Please note: 1. Happy ending. Six-year age gap. 2. The gong and shou are not related by blood or law, and are not on the same household register. There is no romance before the younger character comes of age. 3. The story opens in 1999, in a partially fictional setting. 4. The gong cries, acts spoiled, clings to the shou, and pretends to be obedient around him, but he is not a weak gong. 5. The shou is straight, and the gong turns him gay. 6. A lesbian couple appears in the middle and later parts. --- I'm His Dad [Reborn] blurb --- After a car accident, Cheng Che transmigrates seven years into the future and becomes a high school sophomore. He also realizes that this world is nothing more than a novel. The protagonist is named Yu Song, a textbook tragic yet powerful Dragon King, while the main villain is... Lin Yunqing?! Isn't that the good boy he adopted? To stop his son from turning evil, Cheng Che works hard to change the plot and mend his son's strained relationship with the Dragon King protagonist. Using his son's name, he showers the Dragon King with concern and secretly helps him. At the same time, he gives his son lessons in how to be a good person, determined to bring this flower of the motherland back to the right path. After Cheng Che's efforts, his son becomes more and more righteous, but the Dragon King turns evil. Yu Song is poor and withdrawn, the most inconspicuous student at school, and is often bullied. Then one day, a transfer student named Cheng Che joins his class. He lends Yu Song a hand when he's in trouble and drives away the students bullying him. But every time he helps, he says he's doing it on Lin Yunqing's behalf. He thinks he's a clever liar, but his story is full of holes. Yu Song assumes they've come up with some new trick and refuses to be moved. Yet he can't help watching Cheng Che in his blue-and-white school uniform. He thinks Cheng Che will make fun of him, but later realizes Cheng Che never intended to. Because Cheng Che doesn't care about him at all. He only cares about Lin Yunqing. Yu Song thinks that if he can just become good enough, Cheng Che will eventually pay him more attention. But no matter what he does, he can't compare to Lin Yunqing in Cheng Che's heart. "What exactly makes me worse than Lin Yunqing?" Yu Song asks in near despair. Cornered against a wall, Cheng Che hesitates. "Maybe, possibly, because..." "I'm his dad?" Lin Yunqing never imagined that his adoptive father, who had been dead for seven years, would be Reborn as his classmate. Not only that, he tells Lin Yunqing that he's merely a villain in a book, advises him not to do anything reckless, and urges him to get along with the Dragon King. Lin Yunqing is overjoyed: No problem. I'll do whatever Dad says. From then on, Lin Yunqing treats Yu Song like a real brother, until one day he discovers Yu Song has inappropriate feelings for his dad. Lin Yunqing: Yu Song, what the hell! I thought we were brothers, and you want to be my dad? Please note: 1. The son is not Cheng Che's biological child. Cheng Che was twenty-three before his car accident and is seventeen after being Reborn. 2. The couple is Cheng Che (shou) and Yu Song (gong). His relationship with his son is purely familial: a family of three living their school days together. Theme: Face adversity with your head held high