All the guys knew that Li Jinyan had a moonlight buried in his heart. The night that girl got married, he locked himself in his villa and shut out the sunlight for three months. Unable to watch him suffer, a few of them showed up with a "present."
Li Jinyan stood there with damp hair hanging over his eyes, his jawline hidden in the shadows and an exhaustion that wouldn't fade. He turned sideways and pointed toward the kitchen. "That one's a closer match."
Wei Xin, wearing an apron as she cooked porridge, turned at the sound and smiled. For a moment, the whole room seemed to come back to life.
She looked so much like her. So much that if you stared long enough, you could mistake her for the real thing.
Before long, everyone in their circle knew that the Li family's heir was keeping a "replacement."
The girl came from a poor family and had dropped out of college. She made a living selling tea on livestreams. With her cool, clear features and gentle, mistlike air, people mocked her as a "green tea girl."
Everyone wondered how long this wild camellia, reaching for a high branch, could keep up the act of being sweet before he dumped her.
But she was the one who asked to break up, her calmness almost frightening. "Everything I've gotten, I got by sleeping with you. If you think you've been shortchanged, I can spend one more night with you."
Li Jinyan laughed in anger. His expression was impassive, but his eyes darkened ominously. "Wei Xin, you've got some nerve."
*
Three years later, she attended a high-society party as a renowned architect from overseas. He watched as she was pressured to drink and smile, unable to land a single contract.
Someone egged her on. "Dance the one you did on your livestream back then, and the contract's yours."
Wei Xin looked at no one else. With tears in her voice, she gazed toward him in the shadows. "Brother Jinyan..."
That was what she called him when they were tangled together and she was begging him to stop.
Li Jinyan's fingertips paused. The corner of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly, and smug delight surged inside him.
Li Jinyan rose smoothly and tied his jacket around her waist, covering her pale thighs, still faintly visible beneath the hem. "If she dares to dance, do you have the guts to watch?"
That night, he pinned her against the bed and listened to her call him "Brother Jinyan" over and over, until her voice turned hoarse.
Everyone said the replacement had finally turned the tables.
Until Li Jinyan secretly went to Sucheng to find her and saw her tearful, her eyes red and pitiful as she grabbed a noodle shop owner. "Five years, how much longer are you going to avoid me?"
The man took off his mask, revealing a face seven-tenths similar to Li Jinyan's, with warm, gentle features and the unmistakable air of everyday life.
Li Jinyan felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. He couldn't even breathe.
So, in this game of pretending to be someone else, he was the knockoff all along.
*
At first, I only loved her face.
After I fell for her, damn it, how could this shallow woman still only love my face?!
Blurb date: 2026.06.02
Theme: Study hard and keep striving every day
