Daylight's Splendor

★ Complete. No pirated copies, please.

/ Mixed-heritage daddy type x spoiled heiress | leopard x cat

/ Older man x younger woman | wealthy-family arranged marriage | mutual healing

The Cong family of Hong Kong Island is a renowned old-money clan.

Cong Yi, the family's eldest daughter, was raised in luxury from childhood. Her life was always extravagant and carefree, with not a worry in the world.

Then, the year she graduated from college, her father broke up her romance. The heiress, whose life had always gone smoothly and who had never been denied anything she wanted, was devastated. For the first time, she learned what heartbreak felt like, and she spent two whole years sunk in misery.

When she finally recovered, she began indulging herself with wild abandon. The decisive business heir who had once made people wary became, in the Hong Kong media's words, a money-burning machine with a scandalous private life.

She thought it didn't matter if her life continued to be this absurd. She might as well spend her time in this world having fun. She never expected her family to turn around and arrange a marriage for her.

She hadn't even met the man, and he lived a thousand miles away. She'd heard he was "disabled," too.

Dissatisfied, she smashed the pair of jade bangles among the betrothal gifts and declared that if they forced her to marry, she'd throw herself into Victoria Harbour.

But the other man was no pushover either. He intercepted her as she drove furiously through the night.

A black Bugatti swept into a graceful arc. The man got out without losing his temper. In a gray overcoat, he stood tall beneath the moonlight, a short distance away from her.

"Miss Cong, come with me for a while. If you still don't want to marry me when we get back, we'll call off the engagement."

The moment Cong Yi saw with her own eyes that the first love who had once promised to spend his life with her was now married to someone else and incredibly happy, she fell apart.

On a snowy London street, she cried as she shoved Wen Shiyi away, tears streaming like beads from a broken string.

"Wen Shiyi, you're insane! Why did you bring me here to see this? I hate you!"

"Have you seen enough? If you have, then come back and marry me."

Wen Shiyi spoke coolly, caught her hands as she pounded on him, and led her into the car.

Before long, news of the marriage between the Wen and Cong families spread throughout Beijing and Hong Kong.

As the eldest son of the Wen family, Wen Shiyi had carried heavy responsibilities since childhood. But an accident in his youth injured his hand. From then on, his hand became a taboo that everyone in Beijing avoided discussing.

He was disciplined and scrupulous every day, and he spared no effort in living up to expectations and supporting the Wen family. Apart from responsibility and restraint, his life was as dull as a blank sheet of paper.

That is, until he married a woman who gave him no end of trouble.

She dared to talk back to him, dared to play games with his heart, and dared to order him around and lose her temper at him.

He could put up with all of that. The one thing he couldn't tolerate was her seeing other men behind his back.

In a bustling city center, inside a private room awash in neon lights and indulgence, a woman with a radiant expression, blazing red lips, and loosely draped hair is drenched in a thin sheen of sweat and sprawled in a male model's arms.

"Wen Shiyi, he can pick me up in both arms. Can you?"

Cong Yi points at Wen Shiyi's injured left hand and smiles like a proud, mischievous cat.

In that instant, Wen Shiyi is consumed by anger and desire.

That night, Cong Yi pays a painful price for provoking him.

/ Love your beloved like you would tend a flower, and love yourself like you would nurture a tree.

/ Those who flee with broken hearts will meet again at a street corner.

#Cover background used with permission from @Hemin

#Setting: Beijing and Hong Kong storylines run in parallel, with scenes in London and Edinburgh.

#Apart from famous landmarks and locations, all other settings and relationships between characters are fictional.

#No content warnings. Read with care.

#Core plot points recorded on 2024.4.22; screenshot taken on 2024.8.4.

#The quote at the end is from Federico Garcia Lorca's City That Does Not Sleep.

Theme: No one is worth letting yourself be trapped in misery for your whole life.