Knowingly Crossing the Line

Originally titled Pinocchio

Ning Yao was adopted at the age of seven and spent twelve years as the Ning family's foster son.

After the Ning couple had a biological son, they never treated him as one of their own. The Ning brothers were unruly and ordered him around, never once calling him their elder brother. The Ning family's friends and relatives criticized him and made snide remarks...

Ning Yao didn't care.

He only wanted to be the eldest young master of the Ning family of Haicheng.

To stay, he could grovel and fawn, or resort to any means necessary. He would do whatever it took, no matter how vile.

That year, Ning Yao was nineteen.

Gorgeous on the outside, rotten and rancid within.

*

But the Ning family still threw Ning Yao out.

His paper-thin facade was pretty but fragile, and everyone laughed at his wretched state.

Only Song Qingxu reached out a hand to him. With a smile on his bodhisattva-like face, he asked, "Want to come home with me?"

The Song and Ning families were related by marriage, and their influence was evenly matched.

By seniority, Ning Yao should call Song Qingxu cousin.

Ning Yao took his hand, secretly delighted.

Not because of the Song family, but because of Song Qingxu.

He had done every kind of evil and could lie without batting an eye, but he had never lied to Song Qingxu.

He had loved Song Qingxu for many years.

He couldn't believe he was lucky enough that Song Qingxu loved him back.

Ning Yao carefully hid how despicable and rotten he was, wanting to be worthy of him.

But it turned out Song Qingxu had been lying to him.

He had never loved him. That hand he'd reached out from the very beginning had been part of the deception.

Ning Yao was terrified Song Qingxu would discover how wretched he was. He even woke in a panic from dreams in the middle of the night.

But it turned out Song Qingxu had known all along.

He knew how lowly Ning Yao was, and how despicable.

When Ning Yao met that gaze that saw through everything,

he suddenly wasn't afraid anymore.

He curled his lips into his cruelest smile, tossed the gift he'd bought Song Qingxu with his hard-earned wages into the trash, and mocked his own naivete. "I was too stupid. How could I believe anyone would love a liar?"

If he'd decided to be a bad person, he shouldn't have dreamed of turning back.

*

Song Qingxu thought he wouldn't regret it. The boy was only a pitiful little liar who'd had the bad luck to run into him.

That was until he saw Ning Yao again at a banquet.

The handsome young man moved effortlessly among the guests with a glass of red wine in hand, accompanied by another man.

After the banquet, the two kissed beneath the shifting shadows of the trees. Ning Yao rose onto his toes to chase the man's lips, like a demon who devoured souls.

That was the first time Song Qingxu had ever tasted jealousy.

Afterward, Ning Yao leaned lazily against a tree and smiled at him, the red marks on his neck alluringly wanton. "So the young master Song has a taste for this, huh?"

Song Qingxu approached with a dark gaze, rubbing a fingertip over the kiss mark. "You're more enticing when you stop pretending."

[A compulsive liar and shameless opportunist bottom x a hypocrite who feigns benevolence top. Neither of them is any good. Everyone's a villain.]

[A story about two awful men tangled up in a game of push and pull. I wanted to write something exciting, with a little morality, but not too much.]

Theme: Love yourself.