What's Wrong with Being a Little Scheming?

Yu Tong was born frail. His family raised him with tender care, and after eighteen years of fits and starts, he finally reached adulthood. Then, on the day of his coming-of-age ceremony, he accidentally drowned.

Only after his death did he learn that he was a hapless minor character, briefly mentioned in a good-for-nothing power fantasy, and a body double who died in place of the protagonist, Pei Qianhuo.

The younger son of the Pei family was afraid this "money-wasting good-for-nothing" would threaten his family's standing, so he secretly ordered someone to dispose of him.

Yu Tong, completely unaware, happened to pass by and was mistaken for Pei Qianhuo. They held him underwater until he stopped breathing.

Readers cried out that it had been a close call. Young Master Pei was blessed with great fortune: someone had taken the hit for him in such a dangerous situation. No wonder he was the chosen one, destined to rise triumphantly and stand at the top of the world.

No one cared how devastated the Yu family couple were to lose their son in middle age, how miserable and destitute the Yu family became after falling apart, or how much the unlucky body double didn't want to die.

The body double himself: ...To hell with your chosen-one destiny.

When he opened his eyes again, he was standing by the lake behind the mountain, with no one around.

In five minutes, he would be held underwater and drowned. When he died, Pei Qianhuo had stood not far away, watching coldly. He had witnessed everything, then thought nothing of it and forgotten it, along with the entire Yu family.

A surge of malicious delight rose in Yu Tong's heart. This time, he would get to enjoy watching that money-wasting good-for-nothing despair.

As he watched the other boy gradually give up struggling in the lake, Yu Tong suddenly had a thought.

Much later, when this proud son of heaven knelt before him again and again, eyes bloodshot as he begged for love and attention, Yu Tong would be immensely pleased with the choice he made in that moment:

Save him, warm him, keep him dangling;

brainwash him, train him, and finally tame him.

If he couldn't be the ultimate winner, he would become the ultimate winner's man.

Pei Qianhuo was the money-wasting good-for-nothing born to the Pei family's useless son, and also the most outstanding son of his generation.

Dominant and overbearing, he never let an insult go unanswered. One day, the world would bow before him.

No one knew how weak and helpless he had once been, or how desperate he felt as he nearly drowned in the icy lake.

No one knew how warm the arms that carried him out of the water that day had felt, or how easy it was to sink into them.

From then on, a fire blazed in Young Master Pei's heart, tempered by ice.

He desperately wanted that embrace to belong to him alone. He wanted the little fish to swim only in his palm. He wanted the parasol tree to rustle for him...

He wanted Yu Tong to smile only at him.

For that, he would give up everything, even his own life.

[Reading Guide]

Tender as water (?) manipulative white-moonlight male ghost gong vs. love-brained, self-loathing-for-love, happily-submissive power-fantasy protagonist shou. Strong x strong, both are each other's first.

A sweet-talking, two-faced beauty who looks like a gentleman vs. a self-serving, hot-tempered villain. Two bad seeds pretending to be good people, who slap faces all the way to the top.

Theme: Toy with other people's fates, take control of your own life