Name: The Misplaced Substitute
Author: Lan Kou

Synopsis

[Mindless sugary fluff, no depth or logic!!!]

*

On Qixi, Si Yuluo caught her boyfriend cheating. He thought Si Yuluo had always treated him as a stand-in because she hadn't managed to win over the campus heartthrob, Mu Ming, who had shared her dorm room back then.

Si Yuluo was speechless. You think you're worthy of being the campus heartthrob's stand-in?

After breaking up with him without a second thought, she listed the gift she'd prepared on a secondhand marketplace. She never expected the campus heartthrob to buy it...

Looking at the chat window, Si Yuluo pressed her lips together and pondered.

You cheating scumbag, you like playing out stand-in romance, huh?

Then I'll make sure you really earn that title!!!

*

Back in college, Si Yuluo pursued Mu Ming for seven days. On the eighth day, she disappeared without a trace. Only then did Mu Ming belatedly begin to fall for her.

Just as he was carefully planning how to confess, his roommate told him that Si Yuluo was dating him.

He thought he could wait. But he waited all the way until graduation.

That day, he offered them his best wishes with a smile, every inch the gentleman. He had even requested a strand of Buddhist prayer beads in advance, praying that Si Yuluo would be happy and that the two of them would stay together forever.

But the very next day, he went and had a plain ring made, still selfishly hoping that Si Yuluo would grow old with him...

*

He thought he'd never get another chance, until Qixi a year later, when a friend told him his roommate had cheated, Si Yuluo had listed the gift on a secondhand marketplace, and she was going to pursue him again.

Pursue me again?

Mu Ming gave a sardonic laugh. She must be trying to make my scumbag roommate jealous...

He gazed at the white clouds drifting past the window.

Do I look that pathetic?

Would I willingly be a stand-in?

Am I the sort of person who'd seize an opportunity like that?

Two seconds later...

Download the app!

Buy it at full price!!

Give her my WeChat!!!

- Quirky artist * Frustrated CEO

- Carefree girl * Jealous heart, green-eyed lungs

# A secret agenda meets a long-laid plan

Reunion after years apart | Mutual teasing and seduction

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★ I'm the prey, but I'm also the hunter. - Mu Ming

★ I thought I was the hunter. How did I become the prey? - Si Yuluo

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Weibo: Lan Kou Is Not Lancome

Blurb revised: 2024.8.13

★ The author's completed novels. Come give them a read! ★

My Su Li Huan | Past and present lives | Intense push and pull | Sense of fate

Reclusive vampire hiding in plain sight * Calm, clever, doting veterinarian

"Dr. Shu, I remember your soul..."

Message in a Bottle and Thermos | Rekindled romance | Heartwarming healing story

Top-tier star voice actor * Gentle mixed-race author

"The owner of the thermos is here today..."

★ My next novel will be Soft Scales. Follow along! ★

- Strangers in public, tangled up in private -

*

Jiang Yunong spent the whole summer working, but still couldn't earn enough to cover rent. So before the new school term began, she went to work as a receptionist at a small hotel in a nearby alley.

Her first guest was a 17-year-old high school student.

The boy wore a white T-shirt and black pants, with short hair. He stood there with his head tilted, grinning at her, a canine tooth showing. Clean-cut, yet roguish.

Jiang Yunong showed little expression, let alone warmth. She gave him a quick, cool glance, then took his ID to register him.

Rich, handsome young masters really were all cut from the same cloth. This one was booking a room at his age, and for the whole semester, no less.

That was what Jiang Yunong thought.

*

Chen Che had extremely high standards for sleep. Even when his lab's actual lunch break was only half an hour, he still rented a room outside campus to sleep.

He'd been a regular at this alley hotel since his freshman year. In his sophomore year, he found that the receptionist had changed: a cold-faced, unsmiling young woman who got things done efficiently.

So pale she seemed to glow, and exquisitely beautiful.

The way she looked at him was like a giant python flicking its tongue.

He saw her again on the first day of school.

The class monitor said there was a transfer student more beautiful than a movie star, so beautiful that people were embarrassed to look at her for too long. Chen Che was asleep with his head on his desk, completely uninterested, until the girl walked into the room, until she spoke.

Jiang Yunong.

So that was her name: Jiang Yunong.

But...

That open, radiant smile, that warm, lively manner... She was nothing like the girl at the hotel.

Well, well. So you have two sides to you?

*

Years later, the two unexpectedly met again at a dinner party. A friend introduced them, and they exchanged polite greetings.

A colleague nudged Jiang Yunong's arm and asked if she knew him.

Looking at Chen Si, Jiang Yunong almost blurted out, "We went to high school together."

At one point, Jiang Yunong went to the restroom. When she finished washing her hands and looked up, she was startled to see a man leaning against the wall in the mirror.

Chen Che stared at Jiang Yunong's reflection and walked closer, stopping just a centimeter behind her.

"What are we to each other?"

He was more than half a head taller than Jiang Yunong and stood much too close, his chest almost brushing her back.

They stared at each other in the mirror for a long time, but Jiang Yunong refused to speak.

Chen Che smiled. "Jiang Yunong, classmates don't live together."

He bent down and moved closer.

"And they don't sleep together..."

★ A decisive orphan, warm and sunny in public, cool and distant in private

★ A willful young master, seemingly arrogant and brazen, but actually sincere and devoted

# Both knowingly fall into ruin

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Two compelling people fall into a compelling romance