But Please, Don't Worry

*A tale of dreams growing in a cramped little rental, with a stay-at-someone-else's-home trope

*Gifted student drops out and hides away in a small town, content to waste her life and repeat her senior year VS former athletic training student and delinquent turns over a new leaf to race through senior year

*People-pleaser × avoidant

*"We've arrived at Fule Road. Students returning to school, please exit through the rear doors."

Luo Yuanfang: You're a top student? With a score like that?

Tsk.

Did you hear that? Who talks like that?!

Zheng Ce fires back: And your full name is Academic Failure? You got every multiple-choice question right?

A story about a top student and a delinquent who pretend not to know each other and tell each other to stay away at school, then play at being the sweetest classmates at home.

(I)

Luo Yuanfang had just come out of a fighting ring disguised as a nightclub.

His bare, powerful muscles glistened, his upper body slick with sweat.

His mind was still a little foggy,

so he stopped to collect himself.

He waited for the person in the distance to make her slow way over,

then patiently waited for her to ask the question after an intense inner struggle.

On the dark, damp street,

Zheng Ce, who usually kept a cool expression, flushed red beneath the neon lights.

But what came out of her mouth was even more blunt:

"How much to keep you for a year?"

Her voice was quiet, and trembling.

He hid his bloodied left hand behind his back, avoiding the girl's frightened yet falsely composed gaze.

Zheng Ce swallowed and did the math.

He often brought money home, couldn't control his sex drive, was always covered in bruises, and kept coming and going from places like this...

Could he be... a male escort?!

Or maybe... an M?!

The bank card clenched in her hand dug painfully into her palm.

She could just treat it as rent.

But before she could hold it out, an arm slipped around her shoulders.

Her nose bumped into his sharply defined collarbone.

The man above her seemed to laugh helplessly.

"Keep your card. I'm exhausted, and it's getting dark. Take me home."

(II)

Luo Yuanfang thought this girl made life too hard for herself.

Her eyes were dark and bright, and her silence was like a moonless night.

But when she smiled, they curved, as if a stone had been tossed into a deep pool,

rippling through its serenity and fracture.

He thought,

One day, I'll get her to open up.

"Keeping too many things bottled up will stunt your growth."

But when Zheng Ce called, desperately trying to hold back her feelings, he was the first to lose his nerve.

"I kind of miss you."

"Then come downstairs. I'll take you home."

In the little home that belonged to the two of them,

one night, they lost control after drinking.

Luo Yuanfang pinned her beneath him without giving her a choice, eyes red as he demanded,

"Don't you like me? You can't just decide you don't want me anymore."

#The most important years in a Chinese person's life: primary school, middle school, high school, and college

#Energetic old people, exhausted middle-aged people, and lifeless young people

#A cramped home in a small town VS a bed in a big city

#The leads had the same full name in primary school, but the male lead changed his name later. The story begins in their second year of high school, with no long flashbacks

#Entirely fictional, though place names are based on real ones. If you drop the story, please don't tell me.

Blurb screenshot taken on April 5, 2025

The next book will be "Animal World":

*Darkly gentle older doctor alpha × dazed, mischievous reporter beta

*Female lead has a secret crush but is too lazy to pursue anyone, leaving it all to fate × male lead is secretly admired but keeps enthusiastically recommending himself and bragging about his merits

*Fake siblings, old flames rekindled

*Sweet little story, don't overthink it

(I haven't settled on the leads' names, so I used he and she in the blurb for now!)

I.

A major spent six months fighting in a contaminated wilderness zone, then returned to the city on leave.

He was asked to visit a comrade's little sister.

But he never expected that the moment he stepped inside and introduced himself as her brother,

the girl would come up with two possibilities:

Either this major was a pervert.

Or this major was a shameless pervert.

Besides, her brother was already dead...

While the pervert leaned against the doorway, smiling like a breath of spring, the girl rushed forward and hugged him, pressing her cheek to his chest.

"Big brother, I missed you so much."

He's handsome. I'll take advantage of him first.

The "shameless pervert" was caught completely off guard by the hug. Out of habit, he raised both hands and froze.

Then, trembling as he tried to respond, he managed, "Uh... ha?"

II.

She was quiet by nature but always the first to join in the fun. She found everything new and interesting, yet always pulled her collar right up to her neck.

So he called her "Little Antique."

A thin sheen of sweat formed on his forehead. He gripped one corner of the packaging and gritted his teeth as he tore it open.

"Was sex education so exciting that you never attended a single class, Little Antique?"

Then he took something out of the wrapper and guided it downward with one hand, while smoothing the girl's slightly furrowed brow with the other and kissing her still-trembling eyelid.

"If you want something, you have to take care of it. Holding it in can lead to serious trouble."

"Isn't that beastly, big brother..."

Her face flushed red as she lowered her lashes. The heat in her body hadn't faded, but she never once thought of resisting.

His lips paused by her lashes. He hesitated.

Then a warm, amused breath covered her face.

When the person above her spoke again, his voice was already hoarse.

"You knew from the start I wasn't your brother. And..."

"Welcome to the Animal World."

*Very extensive personal worldbuilding, unconventional ABO and post-apocalyptic settings.

*Blurb screenshot taken on August 14, 2025.

Theme: You only get a few chances in life to give it your all