Sunset

<Next book: By Any Other Name, an age-gap sponsorship story>

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Opening: Return to China | Fostered

Chen Wen's father was a bodyguard to a senior official. He was shot and killed while carrying out a mission, leaving behind an orphaned daughter.

The senior official took her into his home, and from then on she grew up entangled with his grandson.

When she was eighteen and Lian Zhan was twenty-one, he got drunk at a party, and she helped him into the house. Staring at her older brother's lips, Chen Wen gave in to a moment of madness and leaned in to kiss him.

Mistaking familial affection for romantic love, she thought she'd gone astray. The next morning, she fled to the United States.

And so began the story of her running, him chasing, and her having no chance of escape.

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Six years later, she graduated and returned to China.

Lian Zhan was no longer the gentle, warm older brother she'd once known. He was domineering, stubborn, brooding, and violent.

But nobody knew they'd been secretly entangled for six years, in a relationship they shouldn't have had.

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[Reader Advisory]

1. HE

2. SC (with a misunderstanding)

3. Three-year age gap

--Next Book Blurb--

Sponsorship story | Twelve-year age gap | Gentle, controlling male lead

When she was eight, she met Kong Mingqian. He was a good man who happened to save her.

When she was eighteen, after receiving his support for ten years without fail, she earned the fourth-highest score in the province and excitedly came to Beijing to see him.

Later, they got together. He was wonderful: gentle and chivalrous, giving her everything she wanted.

But behind closed doors, she heard him tell someone, "When she graduates, I'll give her a dowry and find her a good family to marry into. Then I'll discuss an arranged marriage for myself."

Her heart shattered. "Don't you love me?"

He simply smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Jinjin, you're still too young to know what love is."

Furious and in tears, she snapped, "That's right, I don't know as much as you, you old man! You may be clearheaded after we get out of bed, but that's not what you say in bed!"

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Later, she left with someone else, and Kong Mingqian got his wish and married a suitable partner.

But in the dead of night, when he saw her smiling face in an intimate photo with someone else on a foreign social media site, it felt as though a piece of his heart were missing.

He had always been proud and never lowered himself to beg. Chasing her was no different.

He set his sights on the man currently by her side and went after him on all fronts, targeting both his personal life and career. Calm, efficient, and unscrupulous, he left the man in complete disarray.

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Duan Jinru thought the man had cheated on her. They had a breakdown and fought, and Kong Mingqian showed up at just the right moment to stand up for her and bring her back.

She felt guilty at first, thinking she'd caused him more trouble. She apologized, and he smiled, graciously accepting it. "I'll always be right behind you."

Then one day, the girl he'd sent to seduce that man returned from abroad and told her, in tears, what the man in her bed had really done.

Only then was she stunned.

It turned out she'd never understood him at all.

[Reader Advisory]

1. HE

2. The male lead is only engaged, and stays single after the breakup; the female lead does not

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Theme: Focus on yourself, cherish the present, and live earnestly.