Please, Mark Me One More Time

My upcoming nonhuman novel: The Snake God Is My Angel Investor. Cold, sinister deity x pitiful overworked wage slave. Blurb at the bottom.

[Complete. Dive right in!]

1. Wen Zhiyu has developed a new type of pheromone resistance disorder. Every episode leaves him wishing he were dead, and the only way to ease it is to receive a temporary mark from a top-tier alpha whose pheromones match his.

So he sets his sights on Li Qingchi, the cold, merciless S-class alpha doctor.

"Dr. Li, pick one: be my painkiller, or see tomorrow's headlines: 'The Eldest Young Master of the Li Family Turns Out to Be a Genetic Defect.'"

Li Qingchi's eyes are dark. "Are you trying to die?"

Wen Zhiyu smiles, his eyes curving. "Why not give it a try, Dr. Li?"

One agreement, one act of coercion, and the two are forced into a bond.

But during every treatment, Li Qingchi bites the back of his neck hard and viciously, as if to say: Wen Zhiyu, you're the biggest nuisance of my life.

Finally freed, Wen Zhiyu rubs the bite mark and mutters, "Why is it harder to get bitten once than to climb to heaven these days?"

Li Qingchi is sick to death of this audacious little fox and wants him gone from his sight every waking moment.

But when he actually sees Wen Zhiyu smiling brightly at another alpha, he nearly crushes the suppressant vial in his hand.

"Stay away from him. He's my patient."

The other man raises an eyebrow. "Just a patient?"

Li Qingchi doesn't answer.

By the time he returns from handling an emergency, Wen Zhiyu is nowhere to be seen.

Li Qingchi pushes open the clinic door, his expression dark.

Empty.

He walks to the window and sees Wen Zhiyu crouched beside a streetlight downstairs, feeding a stray cat. His profile is gentle, and the back of his neck still bears the marks Li left last night.

Li Qingchi calls him.

The man downstairs answers, his voice full of laughter. "Miss me, Dr. Li?"

"Come up."

"Isn't the next marking tomorrow?"

"Now. Immediately."

[Cold, dominant, possessive doctor gong who gets jealous and denies it x seemingly provocative, actually unwittingly flirtatious cat shou]

Little scene: After a treatment, later on.

Wen Zhiyu curls up on the examination bed, the corners of his eyes still damp, and turns his head to ask softly:

"Li Qingchi... If I get better, will you still bite me?"

Li Qingchi is wiping his fingers. His hand stills for a moment.

He doesn't answer.

He simply bends down and bites that already-marked patch of skin again.

Harder than ever before, but also...

More like a kiss than ever before.

Reading guide:

1. One-on-one, happy ending, both leads have only ever been with each other.

2. The gong is intensely possessive. He is disdainful at first, then turns into a gloomy, obsessive ghost of a man. He struggles to understand his feelings. The shou isn't difficult, just a little cat who loves to provoke people.

3. The romantic push and pull is the main focus; the plot serves the romance.

Blurb for the new novel:

Jiang Jue is about to go insane from that cold, sinister gaze.

For the past three months, whether he's pulling an all-nighter at work or squeezed into the last subway train, he always feels a sticky, inhuman gaze fixed on the back of his neck.

Late at night, in a room with every door and window shut, he feels something slippery coiling around him.

After he calls the police, he discovers that the surveillance footage shows only himself, trembling with fear.

The wage slave's reason finally snaps.

Jiang Jue smashes his mouse, quits his job, and flees back to his hometown, taking over the old guesthouse his parents described as warm and rustic.

He thinks the fresh mountain air will wash away the city's bad luck.

But what does he get?!

The guesthouse is anything but warm and rustic. In fact, it's downright creepy.

Every night he hears snakes hissing and sees a huge snake-shaped shadow outside the door. Not only are the guests too scared to come, but three cleaning ladies have already been frightened away.

Later, Jiang Jue goes into the mountains behind the house and stumbles into a dilapidated shrine. The eyes on the snake-shaped wooden statue make his scalp prickle.

Just as he's about to run, a snake moves in on him. More precisely, it has a human body and a snake's tail.

Those cold eyes stare fixedly at him, its whole body radiating chill. "You're finally back. Now it's time to pay what you owe me."

The Snake God begins collecting his debt in inhuman ways:

The guesthouse is on the verge of bankruptcy? The next day, a huge sum mysteriously appears in the account.

A rainstorm washes out the mountain road? A construction crew is dispatched.

Under the Snake God's cold, unrelenting gaze:

Sense of security: -100%

Guesthouse safety: +infinity

Snake PTSD: +200%

Until one night, when he is being coiled around so tightly that he can barely breathe, Jiang Jue finally loses his temper and roars at Xie Xianqing: "What the hell do you want? Can't you just get it over with?"

The icy tail suddenly tightens around his waist. Cold, damp breath fans across his face as the Snake God speaks, sinister and excited: "Get it over with? I have waited three hundred years to collect this debt. How could I possibly get it over with?"

#A pitiful wage slave forced to sign a three-hundred-year romantic debt

#This Snake God's way of collecting debts is a little off

#It seems he's coiling around me, not the debt

*Pitiful wage slave x cold, obsessive Snake God

Little scene:

After being tormented until he has no will to live, Jiang Jue finally decides to sneak away.

He doesn't want the guesthouse or the money. His life matters most.

Unexpectedly, he blacks out before he can even meet the friend who was coming to pick him up.

When he wakes, he's back in the guesthouse bed. Xie Xianqing stares at him with dark, sinister eyes, as if he intends to devour him whole.

"If you run away again, I'll fuck you to death..."

(There's no need to wonder whether he means kill or have sex. It's a double entendre.)

Theme: Love makes it impossible to refuse