The Rules of the Upper Class

Career-minded workaholic x lovesick, gloomy yandere

They say you shouldn't meet someone too dazzling when you're young.

Nine years, a full nine years, and Ran Ran still couldn't forget Chen Qisheng.

During the years they were apart, Ran Ran focused on her studies and career and had no plans to fall in love again.

Just as she finally decided to try starting a new relationship, the man who had disappeared for nine years, and whom she had only just managed to get over, appeared in front of her again.

He was no longer the carefree, smiling boy she remembered. Now he wore a suit, his manner restrained, and metal-framed glasses perched on his nose. The sharp lines of his face looked all the more refined and cool behind the glasses, like a gentleman.

But what he did was anything but gentlemanly.

He wasn't refined or composed, either. On the contrary, he was forceful, arrogant, and ruthless, stopping at nothing to get what he wanted.

One night, rain poured down as thunder roared outside and lightning tore across the sky.

Inside, Chen Qisheng cornered Ran Ran and kissed her like a madman.

"Chen Qisheng!" Ran Ran shoved him away with all her strength and slapped him hard. "I have a boyfriend!"

Chen Qisheng pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and gave a slight curl of his lips. "You don't. And even if you do, dump him and choose me."

"What makes you think you can say that?"

"Because I love you more." He leaned toward her again, emotions churning in his dark eyes. "Because I've thought about you every moment of these past nine years. Because I gave up physics so I could be with you, and spent every day fighting to the death with those people, until I became the inhuman, shameless man you see now!"

Ran Ran fell silent for a moment, her gaze darkening. "Chen Qisheng, have you... been blaming me all this time?"

"I've never blamed you, not once. I just want to tell you," Chen Qisheng said firmly, looking into her eyes, "I can give up all of it: my dreams, my principles, my bottom line. I only want you."

P.S.:

1. Both leads are obsessive, and both became who they are because of the other. Neither is perfect.

2. What happens before they reunite is extremely melodramatic. Very melodramatic. Don't read if that's not your thing.

3. The female lead's career storyline takes up a lot of space, but this isn't an empowering female-lead wish-fulfillment story.

Theme: People are like trees: the more they yearn for the sunlight above, the farther their roots must reach into the darkness below. - Nietzsche