My Scheming Adoptive Brother Is Always Coveting My Inheritance

1.

When Wen Zhi was fifteen, a boy who looked a little like her came to live with her family. He was the son of the woman her late father had loved in his youth. Her father brought him home without any explanation, saying only, "This is Lu Chenyuan. Zhi-Zhi, you need to be nice to your big brother Lu from now on. He's one of us."

From that day on, Wen Zhi never treated Lu Chenyuan like an outsider, but she didn't treat him like a person, either.

The trouble was, he was exceptionally good at putting on an act. At their school, he was the untouchable campus heartthrob. Good grades, good looks, good temperament... Everyone praised his refinement and promising future, saying that even though he was living under someone else's roof, he was sure to soar one day.

Only Wen Zhi knew how vicious he could be, and what kind of surging desire and ambition lay hidden behind those perpetually lowered eyes.

Using her status as the young miss of the family, Wen Zhi made Lu Chenyuan run around after her like a dog for three whole years.

2.

Then the college entrance exams ended, and her world fell apart.

Wen Zhi wasn't the Wen family's daughter at all. She was the fake heiress, switched at birth.

And to top it off, the university she had impulsively applied to, Huada, was right next door to his elite university.

"Um... Maybe I shouldn't go after all?"

Her old arrogance and dignity were behind her now. Wen Zhi knew she would have to keep her head down from here on out.

But she forgot that Lu Chenyuan was never a pushover who would let others walk all over him.

And he held a grudge like no one else.

3.

She wanted to sleep in, so he woke her at six. She wanted milk tea, so he tossed it into the trash right in front of her. At last, some classmates invited her out, but the moment she stepped outside, she saw him leaning against the wall, watching her coldly.

She kept putting up with it.

Until one day, she came out of the shower and found him sitting on her bed, holding her phone. On the screen was a message she hadn't had a chance to delete:

"Wen Zhi, I've liked you for a long time. I want to watch the sea with you and count the stars together."

Her scalp went numb. She reached for the phone.

He didn't dodge. Instead, he used the motion to pull her into his arms. Her bathrobe slipped open a little. She froze on his lap, not daring to move.

He tossed the phone onto the bed. One hand locked around her waist, while the other gripped her chin and forced her to look up.

"Wen Zhi." His voice came down from above, unhurried, yet enough to make her spine tingle. "I'm not dead yet. Whose stars are you planning to count?"

Her lips trembled. "I... I wasn't..."

"You weren't?" He lowered his head, his nose brushing the edge of her ear. "Then why are you shaking?"

In the days that followed, Lu Chenyuan became the calamity she could never escape. He seemed like a paragon of virtue, but in truth he had no idea what restraint meant. When he went too far, Wen Zhi finally couldn't take it anymore and tearfully begged him, "Please, no more, okay?"

"You said everything I have is yours." He leaned down slightly, his scorching breath winding around her ear. "Don't rush. I haven't given you everything for tonight yet."

Theme: Study hard and work toward financial independence