No One Believes a Playboy Can Settle Down

Pre-release: "How Could a Noble Academy Have a Build-a-Boyfriend?" See below for the blurb.

This story:

A sharp-tongued but soft-hearted playboy music producer (shou) x a gentle, domineering finance executive and playboy (gong)

Also:

Avoidant attachment vs. an old flame reignited

Tan Xin thinks of himself as avoidantly attached and doesn't believe in love. Even when he hooks up with someone, he calls it quits after three dates and never sees them a fourth time.

His standards are so strict that he's barely dated anyone. Shen Youzhong is the one exception: they clicked so well that Tan Xin actually finds it hard to let go.

Like a wrong note struck while playing the piano.

After much soul-searching, Tan Xin grits his teeth and cuts contact. As a classic movie put it, "Once two people get too familiar, it's hard to keep having fun together."

He spends two quiet years on the shelf, only for Shen Youzhong to show up again and say he wants to pick up where they left off.

Why is this playboy going back to an old flame?!

Are there no fish left in the four oceans?!

Their last breakup ended badly, so this time Tan Xin lays down the law upfront. Even if they start over, his three-date rule is non-negotiable. If Shen can accept that, he can come back. If not, they should never see each other again.

Shen Youzhong, general manager of Private Banking, proposes a wager: For three months, they'll spend time together as usual. If Shen can't resist sleeping with Tan Xin, he'll accept defeat and leave immediately. If he can hold back, they must remain in an exclusive relationship for a year.

Tan Xin: That's it?

I'll start writing "A Thousand Ways to Seduce Mr. Shen" right now. I'll wipe that smug look off your handsome face!

But... did Shen Youzhong go to rehab for something in the last two years?

Their bodies used to fit together perfectly, and one glance was enough to set off fireworks. So how is Shen still holding back when Tan Xin is practically offering himself on a platter? His face is flushed, his temples are throbbing, and his gaze is so intense it looks like he wants to devour Tan Xin, but he still won't make a move?!

After several failed attempts to seduce him, Tan Xin first feels frustrated, then grows wary, afraid this calculating finance executive is leading him into a trap. So he unilaterally tears up their childish, pointless wager, which has no legal standing whatsoever.

If you're unhappy, go call the police!

Shen Youzhong doesn't call the police. The top salesperson puts his greatest talent to work: gently and unobtrusively refusing to give up.

Tan Xin thought he could keep his cool and stay in control, but now he's rushing around in a panic, stumbling over himself and feeling utterly ridiculous.

He complains in annoyance, "Shen Youzhong, are you my jinx or something?"

After what seems like a long while, the man finally answers softly, "I might be in love with you."

#A complicated person needs a gentle lover who breaks in and refuses to leave

Reader's guide:

1. Expect scenes where the powerful one bends and the playboy stays faithful. Neither is a virgin. Two players fall in love after hooking up, with intense push and pull and a bittersweet tone. They're devoted to each other even while they're still dancing around their feelings.

2. The shou currently has long hair, used to be an idol, and can cross-dress and do makeup. He studied male roles in Peking opera as a child and can sing it. His everyday behavior is never coy or effeminate. He has some avoidant attachment tendencies. The gong is a playboy, but not promiscuous. He's proud and picky, and has never had a steady ex. After a long push and pull, the old flame catches fire for good. They have a seven-year age gap. Please skip this if these elements bother you.

3. The story includes a music-variety-show plotline, but it's mainly there to serve the romance. This is not a full-on entertainment-industry story.

Pre-release: "How Could a Noble Academy Have a Build-a-Boyfriend?"

Jiang Xinwan x Fu Junxing

A cool, calculating beauty (shou) x a brooding, clingy, loyal dog (gong)

If Wanhua Academy has a well-known F4, Jiang Xinwan is on a whole other level.

The character "Wan" in the name of this noble academy comes from his name. It was the first character chosen by the old master of the Jiang family, the richest family in Rongcheng, when he founded the school twenty years ago.

Jiang Xinwan is handsome and extraordinary, with a beauty mark between his brows that resembles the Buddha's third eye. His aura is holy and noble, and he is cool and quiet by nature. He never attends any of the social gatherings in their circle, and those who want him can't even touch a strand of his hair.

Yet at some point, people began to notice that Jiang Xinwan had changed.

He started showing up regularly at parties hosted by Wanhua's F4. The serene, saintly young man had become a radiant, passionate social butterfly. The bright, lively eyes beneath the mark between his brows drove people wild.

Jiang Xinwan maintained different kinds of flirtatious relationships with each of them, provoking them to turn on one another and watching them behave like foolish hyenas, dancing in the palm of his hand.

Beneath the rose's apparent warmth lay cold, sharp thorns, waiting for the right moment to strike a fatal blow.

Everyone was infatuated with him, except one person.

Fu Junxing, the second son of the up-and-coming Fu family, was young but cunning and shrewd. Rumor had it that the Fu family had risen to prominence so suddenly because he had acted decisively and landed the winning blow in the financial world.

He was handsome and distinguished, but a strange, crack-like mark crossed his forehead, and his left eye was golden. Behind his back, people called him "the demon-faced one," saying that anyone who got close to him would suffer a great calamity.

Fu Junxing followed Jiang Xinwan like a shadow, showing up at every party he attended and disrupting his private interactions with the F4 members, as though he were driven mad by wanting what he couldn't have.

Swirling his wineglass, the man looked at him with contempt. "Why is Third Young Master Jiang trying to be Wanhua Academy's 'build-a-boyfriend'? Are you that desperate for men? How pathetic!"

Jiang Xinwan replied without a trace of politeness, "If Second Young Master Fu is interested, throwing a tantrum won't help. Take a number. Maybe in your next life you'll qualify to dance with me."

Jiang Xinwan has returned to exact revenge, and Wanhua's F4 are his targets.

In his previous life, the four families tore apart the Jiang family's business empire like a pack of hyenas, leaving him bereft of his family and causing him to die horribly in a fire.

Now that he has been reborn, he cannot let Fu Junxing ruin his grand plan.

If this man keeps interfering, Jiang Xinwan won't mind taking one more life.

Yet when Jiang Xinwan is in a car accident, it is Fu Junxing who risks his life to save him.

In a daze, he hears the man pray sincerely: "I, Fu Junxing, sincerely beseech the heavens: Let me save him once. I'll give my life for his, without hesitation!"

Amid fragments of hazy memories, Jiang Xinwan vaguely recalls that in a distant past life, there was someone who cherished him like a treasure and loved him more than life itself.

So why is that person now standing against him?

Reader's guide:

1. The male leads' names come from a poem: "The sun and moon gaze at each other forever; our hearts wind together, never parting. Wherever I see you sit or walk, it's as if flames are burning through me." From Dunhuang manuscript S.1824, now held at the British Library. In 888 AD, Faxi, a monk at Sanyajie Temple, wrote "The Text on Receiving the Ten Precepts," which grants novice monk precepts. It warns the novices, "A bond formed for a time will end after a hundred years. Each will follow one of the six paths, no longer bound to the other." Yet on the reverse of the manuscript, someone had written this candid, passionate love poem. (Found online.)

2. One-on-one romance, both each other's first and only partner, and a HE with mutual salvation.

3. To avoid misunderstanding: the gong isn't actually a ghost. "Brooding ghost" is just a character archetype.

Theme: Face your true self.