Hello, Marriage Alliance!

In his final year of college, Chen Zhi took a gap year to teach in Dongli Town, avoiding the marriage his family had arranged for him.

He thought his time here would be spent under harsh conditions, bonding with the village kids, sun-darkened but eager to study, as teacher and students in the spirit of socialism.

Instead, when he arrived, he found himself outsmarting unruly children in a well-equipped classroom with brand-new desks and chairs.

Chen Zhi: Just watch me use every trick in the book to win those little brats over.

Oh, right. He also had to make that smug fish farmer next door bow down to him!

Yu Zhen was exiled to a small village. Having burned himself out in the first half of his life, he rented a fishpond and settled into retirement ahead of schedule.

One day, some young punk plunged headfirst into his pond.

Yu Zhen grabbed his fishing rod, hooked the kid by the back of his collar, and hauled him out.

When he turned the kid over, the punk shoved his middle finger right in Yu Zhen's face.

Yu Zhen promptly threw him back in.

He never expected the kid to hold such a grudge that he would end up paying for it with his whole life.

"If I'd known..." Yu Zhen said. "If I'd known, I'd have thrown you farther."

Chen Zhi promptly kicked him into the sofa.

Later, Chen Zhi saw Yu Zhen smiling at him in the home of the person he was supposed to marry.

When they were alone, he hooked an arm around Yu Zhen's neck and smiled dangerously. "Zhenzhen, how do you want to die?"

Yu Zhen smiled back. "Kissed to death by you."

A short-fused firecracker of a bottom x a prickly top who's barely clinging to life

Theme: Picking chrysanthemums beneath the eastern fence, leisurely gazing at the southern mountain