You Can't Live on Your Moonlight Alone

Xie Zheng is a famous business upstart in the capital. He built his company from nothing and, in just five years, grew it to rival the established Jiang Group. Everyone says it's only a matter of time before Xie Zheng overtakes them.

Xie Zheng considers himself a simple man. He loves money. After clawing his way up from the bottom, he has only one passion: expanding his business empire and making more and more money. People often condemn him as vain, but Xie Zheng doesn't care.

Then, while saving someone, he gets a nasty head wound and dreams that he's one of the supporting male characters in a Mary Sue novel. He's hopelessly obsessed with the protagonist. All it takes is one glance from the other man, back when Xie Zheng was a struggling teenager, to make him his unattainable first love. So he gives his first love money, a house, and resources. In the end, desperate to win his favor, he destroys the business empire he's spent years building and gives away his entire fortune.

His! Entire! Fortune!

Xie Zheng wakes up furious, but the plot of the book lingers like a nightmare. It seems absurd. Could anything in this world really be more appealing to him than money?

First love? Can first love put food on the table?

From then on, Xie Zheng decides to swear off love. No red moon, white moon, or any other kind of moon is getting a single cent out of his pocket!

*

Jiang Huan is a rich young master born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He's handsome, well-built, and stylish, the sort of man who could make his debut as a CEO on the spot.

As long as he doesn't speak.

Jiang Huan's starting point in life is so high that he seems born to sneer at others. He's mastered the frightening skill of killing a conversation with two sentences, making him a wrecking ball in business negotiations. Even someone as easygoing as Xie Zheng can't handle him.

Unfortunately, they're not only sworn rivals, but Jiang Huan also seems to have it in for Xie Zheng. Wherever Xie Zheng invests, Jiang Huan follows. Wherever Xie Zheng travels for work, Jiang Huan appears at his hotel the next day. If Xie Zheng attends a business gala, Jiang Huan will throw money at the organizers to get in, even without an invitation, simply because he's the president of Jiang Group.

Xie Zheng has always kept his distance from Jiang Huan. Then, after his nightmare, he realizes that Jiang Huan shares his predicament: they're both victims of first-love fiction. One day, Jiang Huan will be misdiagnosed with a terminal illness and fall for his first love just because the man comforts him.

Xie Zheng: Poor guy.

Overcome with pity, Xie Zheng keeps an eye on Jiang Huan to make sure he doesn't go astray, all while jetting from place to place for work.

Then comes the day Jiang Huan gets his false diagnosis. Xie Zheng drives eight hours to a hospital in another province, just to tell Jiang Huan as soon as possible that he doesn't have a terminal illness.

But by the time Xie Zheng reaches a bench in the hospital garden, he's too late. Jiang Huan's first love has already arrived.

Xie Zheng is crushed. He laments that Jiang Huan is about to fall for his first love and be utterly swept away. But the downcast young master Jiang looks up with a cold expression and says scornfully, "Who the hell are you? What business is it of yours what illness I have?"

Xie Zheng, witnessing the verbal assault: "?" Is this really how the script goes?

*

Everyone in their circle thinks Jiang Huan and Xie Zheng are sworn enemies. Jiang Huan's attempts to make life difficult for Xie Zheng could fill an entire sheet of A4 paper.

But only Jiang Huan's friends know that he has been secretly in love with Xie Zheng for years.

Xie Zheng seems like a tireless work machine. Jiang Huan can only use the clumsiest methods to get close to him. Then one day, the workaholic starts paying attention to an unremarkable bar server.

Xie Zheng takes time away from work to order drinks from the server and help boost his sales. He gets him out of trouble and follows him to his hometown on a business trip...

The server isn't as handsome as Jiang Huan, isn't as well-built, and doesn't come from as good a family, yet somehow he wins Xie Zheng's favor.

Jiang Huan is devastated. He wants to grab Xie Zheng by the collar and demand, "Who the hell is this guy!? How did he cut in line!?"

But he doesn't dare.

So a bad-news friend gives him a bad idea: pretend to have a terminal illness and use that as an excuse to confess to Xie Zheng.

On impulse, Jiang Huan forges a diagnosis. Once he comes to his senses, he thinks he's being ridiculous. He's sitting on a hospital bench, pondering his life, when the rival he resents comes out to comfort him.

Jiang Huan, furious: Where is that damn barking coming from?

Damn it! If he dies, you'll get Xie Zheng all to yourself, right? Not a chance!

Theme: Go against the odds.