Blurb:
When Chen Youzhen was fifteen, his father brought home a little boy.
Thunder and lightning raged that day. His father wrapped the child's slender body in his coat, leaving a pair of feet exposed, the frail blue veins on their tops clearly visible.
His father said the boy was the orphan of a dear friend, and that he had brought him home to raise as his own son.
From then on, the Chen family had a new young master, as delicate as a doll carved from jade.
*
Chen Jingshu had fallen gravely ill as a child and lost many of his memories. Fortunately, his family treated him wonderfully, raising him in comfort until he became a gentle, handsome young master.
He was kind to everyone and excelled in his studies. At school, his teachers praised him as an outstanding student. The Chen family was wealthy and powerful, and all he had to do was graduate and come of age before he could start working in the family business.
Who could have guessed that the young master would suddenly pack his bags and flee overseas to study?
*
Chen Youzhen saw his younger brother again five years later. The beautiful young man had grown up, even more dazzling and flamboyant than he had been as a child.
At a grand hotel in the decadent, glittering world of Shanghai, his younger brother hooked a finger into his tie and leaned close to speak. His breath was hot as it brushed Chen Youzhen's lips.
Chen Youzhen looked at the other's upturned eyes, and his heartbeat faltered for several seconds.
Chen Jingshu smiled and kissed the space beside his ear. "Brother, you know we're not really brothers, don't you?"
*
Chen Jingshu hated every member of the Chen family with all his heart.
He deliberately provoked trouble, and Chen Youzhen willingly took the bait.
They tangled together, but just when Chen Youzhen thought their relationship had reached its most passionate peak, Chen Jingshu quietly withdrew, without the slightest hesitation.
He leaned against the brother he had once been so intimate with, still smiling.
"Brother, let me tell you something. Father likes me."
"On the night I came of age, he forced his way into my room."
*
Only later did Chen Youzhen learn that his father had secretly kept this rose all to himself. That seemingly refined man had killed the boy's guardian, brought him into the family home, and claimed him for himself.
They all wanted to pluck the rose. In the end, its thorns would leave their hands covered in blood.
Reader's Guide:
A seemingly flirtatious but truly cold, rose-like beauty as the uke x a once-gentle, later unhinged and obsessive seme
None of the characters on either side of the pairing are blood-related.
Theme: Good and evil both meet their just deserts
