The Boss Keeps Imagining I'm in Love with Him

An outwardly cold, inwardly dramatic, self-deluding top x a frankly impoverished, highly skilled bottom who plays the pig to eat the tiger

Li Tuoming has a secret.

By day, he's the icy CEO who sends shivers through the business world. At night, he's the anonymous owner of an adult novelty shop.

Then a resume lands in his inbox. Its applicant is named Shu Zhanyan, a top graduate from a prestigious university.

In the photo, his features are clear and bright, like light that life has never crushed. But on the day of the interview, the first thing he does is ask for 50 yuan of his salary in advance.

Later, the meaning of his poverty becomes very tangible:

He eats a pot of plain congee over three days, making soup for his employer each day with free leftover bits of pork ribs.

A stray cat he picked up rubs against his trouser leg. The young man looks up and smiles. "It calls you Daddy. Is that okay?"

Alarms blare in Li Tuoming's mind.

- He's this poor, and he's still treating me well?

- He cares so much about what I like to eat?

- Even the cat wants to call me Dad?

There can only be one conclusion: He's fallen for me.

Keeping a stern face, Li Tuoming begins to talk himself into it. He plans his confession and even chooses a romantic spot beneath a skyscraper.

Instead, one clear-headed "I'm sorry" shatters his fantasy into icy shards.

Shu Zhanyan really is poor.

At seventeen, his family was destroyed, leaving him saddled with debt. He works three jobs and carefully accounts for every penny.

He works at the adult shop to pay off his debts.

He makes soup for the owner simply out of kindness.

But why is the cool, aloof shopkeeper looking at him with a gaze that grows hotter and hotter?

At last, the man pins him in a car, his voice restrained. "I like you."

- So the abstinent shopkeeper is gay.

And he even thinks he's the prey.

Much later, Li Tuoming leaves his trillion-yuan corporation behind and wraps his arms around Shu Zhanyan from behind, his voice hoarse.

"How about I give up the company and stay home cooking for you?"

"I love you. Could you please not leave again?"

"There are lots of products in the shop. Let's go pick one to try tonight."

[Reading Guide]

★ Two powerful leads, both each other's first and only, HE, a blend of sweetness and satisfying payback, with twists and planted clues.

★ You think it's one-sided, but it's actually mutual undercurrents. You think it's a poor boy's rise to success, but it reveals another layer of mystery surrounding his identity.

If the blurb is this compelling, the story itself is even better.

The entire story is already written, so feel free to add it to your favorites, ladies!

My next upcoming work, The Fishing-Line Beauty Is Not Quite Right, is already available in my author's collection.

Everyone knows that Fu Yuzhou, the young doctoral supervisor hailed as a god of academia, is cool and detached, devoting himself entirely to the starry skies of scholarship.

And Lin Shun is the one dazzling beauty who should never have appeared in that sky.

When they first meet, Lin Shun is notorious for being a charming heartbreaker, beautiful and flirtatious, changing boyfriends more often than the monsoon changes. At an academic conference, he falls in love at first sight with the young doctoral supervisor who until then had existed only in rumors and headlines, and dumps his current boyfriend on the spot.

Everyone treats it as a joke.

A playboy thinks he can win the heart of that untouchable beauty?

Lin Shun pursues him with a grand show of passion: roses, love poems, and public declarations.

Fu Yuzhou turns him down just as decisively. "My time belongs to my projects. I don't play at love."

But the colder Fu Yuzhou is, the more fascinated Lin Shun becomes.

And the iceberg seems to be slowly melting. Lin Shun even starts to think that giving someone like this a little more of his heart might... not be such a bad deal.

Until the night of the celebratory banquet, when he talks about Fu Yuzhou with his business rival, Li Tuoming. Fu Yuzhou, standing just outside the door, hears Lin Shun casually say, "It's just for fun."

The man vanishes without a trace.

When he reappears, he is surrounded by stars who truly stand as his equals. The look he gives Lin Shun is colder than the way he looks at unfamiliar data.

For the first time, Lin Shun tastes heartbreak.

He reins in every sharp edge and awkwardly learns how to love. He even risks his entire fortune just to keep Fu Yuzhou safe and sound.

Holding out his opened heart, he waits in the torrential rain until he's soaked through.

"Fu Yuzhou... I only want you. Just you."

The answer is the man's long-awaited kiss, and a cold handcuff locked around his wrist.

Fu Yuzhou rests his forehead against Lin Shun's. Behind his lenses, his eyes are as deep as a frozen abyss. There is none of his former cool restraint left.

"I had my eye on you before the conference. Every time your heart skipped a beat, every step you took toward falling for me..."

"They were all traps I carefully designed for you."

"Lin Shun, the game is over."

"The hunter is ready to close the net."

[Reading Guide]

★ A true hunter, warm on the outside and cold within, and god of academia top x a flirtatious, beautiful menace bottom. Both are powerful and top students.

★ The sexual tension is off the charts: a shocking reversal where the hunter is hunted, full of control and strategic maneuvering.

★ A profound emotional transformation: from "just having fun" to "it has to be you," with a playboy turning over a new leaf and a dramatic pursuit of his love, though in truth the top is directing everything.

★ 1v1, HE, two powerful leads, an intense push and pull.

If the blurb is this compelling, the story itself is even better! Add it to your favorites!

Thesis: True love is priceless. Protect what is beautiful