The Fake Saintly Father Is Everyone's Favorite

[The blurb for the upcoming novel After a Corporate Drone Raises His First Love's Child is at the very end.]

Xue Shu was thoroughly rotten, until one day he got into trouble and was bound to the Saintly Father System.

Rules for a Saintly Father:

1. Love everyone around you.

2. Love everything around you.

3. Love all things under heaven. (Crossed out)

Fortunately, Xue Shu kept one last trick up his sleeve. He changed the final rule.

3. A Saintly Father despises all things under heaven.

But the world loves a Saintly Father.

He becomes the neighbor of the city boy who moves to a poor rural village for a reality show. He is timid and weak. According to the original plan, the rich city boys should tease him and trick him into one embarrassing situation after another, while he grovels for that pitiful little bit of money.

Even when they lay their malice plainly before Xue Shu, he only smiles shyly and says, "They're good people. They give me money."

Perhaps the city boys finally develop a conscience. They take Xue Shu to the city. After the show airs, he is cursed at by his classmates, while viewers who watch the program despise him even more.

Xue Shu follows them around, becoming a Saintly Father they can mock and amuse themselves with whenever they please, until their white moonlight falls ill and, by chance, Xue Shu turns out to be a successful bone marrow match.

They think they'll have to go to great lengths to get Xue Shu to agree, but he has already signed the consent form. He really is willing.

A year later, Xue Shu has long since left their lives, repaid every kindness they showed him, and returned to his hometown.

Then the reality show team unexpectedly releases an anniversary special, featuring a secret interview with Xue Shu.

Xue Shu smiles and says, "I like them? Why would you think that? They like watching me do this, and you like watching me do this, so I did it."

"I accept the abuse and criticism. After all, they and you helped me. I owe them a debt of gratitude."

It wasn't love. It was simply a little conscience, a wish to repay a kindness.

What a saintly father indeed.

After a Corporate Drone Raises His First Love's Child

Ye Heng is over thirty, an utterly ordinary corporate drone. In his boss's eyes, he's just a regular subordinate who always wears black-rimmed glasses, has pale skin, and rarely speaks. He's constantly anxious, never knowing when he'll get fired.

To his young neighbor, Ye Heng is just a befuddled old man who loves lecturing others and going on about how neighbors are closer than distant relatives.

As for his high school best friend, the man he's pursued for years and who shines with countless honors in his eyes, Ye Heng is simply a good-looking, shy, ordinary person.

But for the sake of their long friendship, he's willing to let Ye Heng into his social circle. That's all.

Until one day, Ye Heng disappears without explanation. No one can find him.

When Ye Heng finally reappears, his slender, pale fingers are wrapped around the hand of a short boy cowering behind him.

The boy is eight years old.

Only later do they learn that the child belongs to Ye Heng's first love from his youth.

*

Only then does his boss realize that Ye Heng can smile like that for the child of someone he loves, his lips rosy and full. He even dares to push his boss away, all to protect a child who has no connection to him whatsoever.

Only later does the young neighbor realize that this old-fashioned man is willing to embrace so many new things for the boy. He even puts up with his unreasonable demands and wears white thigh-high socks and a short skirt. Does he really love that first love so much?

And only later does the man who thought he was the bottom's best friend realize that Ye Heng had a youthful crush no one else knew about. He had been a clown, convinced that the bottom had loved him for years, treating Ye Heng like a familiar dog who followed him around and taking it all for granted.

So he's the one who's been acting like a lovesick dog, isn't he?

*

When Ye Heng finally gets drunk and sends the child back, he arrives at his room only to be instantly swallowed by the shadows of three tall men.

"Do you like that person that much?"

"Why are you so upset just because a child left?"

"You're not planning to find that first love of yours, are you?"

With tears blurring his vision, Ye Heng looks at the three men before him.

"Won't you look at me?"

"I'll be your dog, become abnormal for you, become a madman for you."

Theme: Think carefully, discern right from wrong sincerely, and don't lose heart in the face of criticism.