Can a Pretty Little Lovesick Fool Avoid Being Cannon Fodder?

[Please check out my other novels, "Sickly Omega Always Being Fought Over" and "Can't Escape After Divorcing the Top Alpha Tyrant"]

Jiang Zhuoling and Bo Sijing had grown up together.

Jiang Zhuoling had been a shallow little beauty lover since childhood, and thanks to his breathtaking mixed-race looks, Brother Sijing was always the one he loved most among all the people he fell for at first sight...

One day, Jiang Zhuoling woke up to discover that he was already married to Bo Sijing!

Jiang Zhuoling: ? Boohoo, how could I get this lucky!

*

It took Jiang Zhuoling just ten seconds after waking up to accept that he was married.

After all, he was married to Brother Sijing, the man he'd been secretly crushing on for ages.

But when he excitedly went looking for a cuddle with his lawful husband, he found that the man was unusually cold toward him.

Bo Sijing never initiated a hug or a kiss, let alone anything more intimate!

Even the intimacy he allowed came only after Jiang Zhuoling pestered him relentlessly...

One day, after drinking, Jiang Zhuoling worked up the courage to hook an arm around Bo Sijing's neck and press close, nuzzling the corner of his lips. "Brother... give me a kiss."

But the man only frowned, caught his wrist, and turned his head away from the kiss.

"Lingling, you're drunk."

*

Jiang Zhuoling was heartbroken by his partner's coldness.

But he soon figured out why. It turned out the world was a giant melodramatic novel about wealthy families and toxic romances, and he was a minor cannon-fodder character!

The cannon fodder was spoiled and malicious, capricious and neurotic, making everyone around him resentful.

He clung to the handsome, refined Main Character One, throwing tantrums and forcing himself on him.

He bullied the aloof, restrained Main Character Two, framing him with vicious, underhanded tricks.

He groveled to the domineering, powerful main villain, flattering him and helping him do evil.

After doing every bad thing imaginable, he would be exposed and meet a tragic end, hated by everyone.

Jiang Zhuoling quietly glanced at the handsome, cool Bo Sijing beside him.

...Wasn't he the mixed-race, noble, aloof, and impossibly difficult Main Character One in the book!?

Frightened, Jiang Zhuoling snuggled into Bo Sijing's arms and silently cried. He could only feel better if Brother held him.

"Boohoo... do I have to be cannon fodder?"

*

The newly awakened little cannon-fodder was devastated. He'd fallen for so many people as a child because he was attracted to their looks, only to discover that every one of them was a protagonist he could never hope to reach!

The little cannon-fodder considered avoiding the protagonists to escape his tragic fate.

But when he tried to run, he discovered that the whole world was kissing him instead

His childhood friend, the school bully, looked at him with ever-increasing madness, and the aloof senior who used to ignore him had changed completely.

He told his cold husband they should split up, but somehow wound up being punished until his legs went weak.

His lips were wet and swollen, and suggestive red marks covered his waist...

His dazed eyes were misty with tears. "Does a little cannon-fodder... have to go through all this too...?"

*

Bo Sijing had never believed that the moon, suspended high in the heavens, would truly show mercy to the world.

Its light shone over the earth, and passersby who happened upon a glimmer of it thought they could make the moon their own with their love.

But he was determined to be the one to pluck it from the sky.

And then, one day, the person he had taken by force lost his memory.

When he awoke, it seemed he was utterly, madly in love with him...

-

*Elegant, aloof young gentleman x pampered, fussy princess baby

Reader Advisory and Content Notes:

1. The author is a total sucker for cheesy romance.

2. Modern setting in an alternate universe, with my own take on wealthy families.

3. Lingling is lovesick but doesn't suffer. Old-school pampered-wife romance vibes.

4. The bottom is a stunning, irresistible beauty, and both the bottom and the top get plenty of adoration.

5. Lots of gender-bending content.

Ahhh, I want to write "Sickly Omega Always Being Fought Over" again.

Qing Dengci is one of the lowest-ranked Omegas in Sunset District.

Poor, weak, and timid, with nothing going for him besides a stunning face and a promising Alpha boyfriend from a humble family. His life seems to have nothing else to offer.

His landlord laughs that he has the delicate constitution of a princess without the princess's birthright. He's always running a low fever and is anemic. Even walking a short distance leaves him out of breath.

He rents a room on the eighth floor of an old, run-down apartment building with dim stairwells. Every night, after finishing his shift, he climbs the stairs, his face as pale as paper.

In his cold, damp little room, he curls up at one end of the cheapest electric blanket, his fingertips numb with cold as he carefully writes a birthday letter to Huo Jinyuan.

He writes that it's okay, that if they keep going together, things will get better someday.

By the time Huo Jinyuan comes back, dawn is approaching. Qing Dengci is feverish and half-conscious, his pale neck glistening with sweat.

With a cold expression, he bends down, supports the back of the Omega's neck, pries open his jaw, and presses a pill to his lips.

"You can yell at me when you're awake," the young man says in a low voice. "Take your medicine first."

Qing Dengci's eyes redden at the corners. He doesn't say a word, only gently rubs his cheek against that large, well-defined hand, making the smallest, timid show of affection.

...He did keep going, just not long enough to reach a future with Huo Jinyuan.

The winter solstice was especially cold. He stared at the words "advanced-stage genetic disorder" on his test results, his mind blank.

They could never afford that kind of treatment. The doctor at a small clinic, taken by his pretty face, hinted that "there might be another way." He said nothing.

He simply walked out and stood motionless in the wind and snow for a long time.

When he returned to his rented room, he revised the letter over and over, then finally broke up with him.

-

But no one could have imagined that the usually obedient Omega would dare to climb into the bed of such a powerful man.

Fu Siyao was the most untouchable Alpha in S City, a man at the very top of the elite. Born to a prominent family, deeply calculating, and holding immense power at a young age, he never indulged in romance.

But that night, he didn't turn Qing Dengci away.

The man sat calmly at the head of the bed, watching those dewy, doe-like eyes approach. The Omega's legs trembled with weakness, but he still reached out with shaking hands to undo his buttons.

Fu Siyao didn't rush to touch him. His warm fingertips traced slowly down from the back of his neck, gently and patiently, as though inspecting a treasured possession he'd long claimed as his own.

"Xiao Ci." The man's voice was unexpectedly gentle. "Are you sure you want to go on?"

Qing Dengci didn't dare look up. He only bit his lip and tremulously clutched the Alpha's clothes.

...By the time he couldn't take it anymore and wanted to run, it was too late.

For a long time afterward, whenever the Omega saw him, his lower abdomen would grow uncontrollably weak and sore.

-

Qing Dengci always knew his place.

He wasn't even a lover. A despicable existence like him was only fit to be a plaything, summoned and dismissed at will.

But when the Alpha asked, "Xiao Ci, do you want to marry me?" his eyes were so serious that Qing Dengci lowered his own, not daring to ask if it was a joke.

For a while, Fu Siyao was in a good mood and said he wanted to take him to meet his family.

Qing Dengci knew he had a younger brother who shared only one parent with him. They were close, and he was the only "family member" Fu Siyao ever mentioned of his own accord.

He'd already rehearsed his opening lines in his head. Be polite, be sweet, act like a respectable "sister-in-law" who had been accepted into the family.

-

For some time, Huo Jinyuan disappeared without a trace.

Nobody knew where he went. They only knew that when he returned, the once cold, unruly young master Huo had become unshakably composed, finally turning into the kind of man his elders said was ready to take over.

Fu Siyao told him to come back, saying he wanted him to meet someone.

Huo Jinyuan didn't think much of it.

His brother never mentioned anyone lightly, but if he was bringing someone over to meet him, it was probably more than just a fling.

Until the moment he opened the door.

...No one knew that Huo Jinyuan had been searching for his first love all along.

Before returning to the Huo family, he had exhausted every means at his disposal, only to learn that the man had been treated for amnesia, remembered nothing of the past, and left no way to contact him.

Until now.

The Omega stood beside Fu Siyao, looking as if he'd been well cared for.

-

He stood right in front of him, his features still as beautiful as a painting, and carefully called him, "Little Brother Jinyuan."

Theme: Love is an anchor amid life's ups and downs.