The Sickly Beauty's Substitute Lover and the Villain Get a Happy Ending

[I'll choose one of this and Contract to start on 2026.01.01.]

Pairing: sickly, highly intelligent, controlling, unhinged beauty top × older, cool-headed, controlling, steady big-shot bottom.

Song Yu, the illegitimate son of the wealthy Song family of Jingcheng, is the gentle, devoted husband top in an old-school angst novel. The author, committed to the rotten idea that "if you love him, you must make him suffer," makes him blind and lame, then has him die after being hit by a car.

In short, he never gets to enjoy a good life for more than a few days.

The matriarch, who puts profit above all else, treats him as a tool. His gloomy, cold older brother looks down on him, and his ruthless, fierce full sibling sees him as an enemy.

The bottom, his arranged-marriage partner, uses Song Yu's influence to rise to success, while privately making things difficult for him at every turn and rejecting him again and again. The bottom even cheats on him, forcing Song Yu to play the fool, until he becomes a laughingstock known to every rich young man.

Yet those filthy affairs are dressed up in grand-sounding excuses: "A Yu, all those people outside are just for show. You're the only one I love."

And naturally, the ultimate gentle, saintly top in an old-school angst novel accepts it all.

[Dear Host, the Angst Novel Correction System 0101 is at your service.]

After being reborn, Song Yu falls into a strange silence as he looks over his own heartbreaking track record.

In his previous life, he was a famous top agent in the entertainment industry, the personal caretaker who helped the young master of the Song family, Song Xiwei, pursue his dream of becoming an actor.

Oh, and he was also a key part of the bottom's plan to pursue young master Song.

When young master Song died unexpectedly in his previous life, Song Yu instantly became everyone's target. His arranged-marriage partner and the Song family members all looked at him with undisguised disgust.

"Song Yu, no one is more repulsive than you."

A deliberately caused car accident sealed Song Yu's fate.

But after he died, the truth came to light. The person who killed young master Song was someone else.

The people who had once hurt him either regretted it bitterly or spent the rest of their lives lamenting what they had done. The bottom finally came to his senses and decided to spend the rest of his life mourning his former "lover."

Song Yu raised an eyebrow.

So?

He got absolutely nothing out of it.

After being reborn, Song Yu cuts ties with everyone and goes all in, with nothing to lose. He is determined to earn himself a happy ending.

The gentle pushover transforms into a cold-blooded beauty snake, luring everyone into going through fire and water for him from on high. Everyone thinks he treats them with sincerity, unaware that

Every act of tenderness signals that the abyss is drawing nearer.

In his previous life, he gave everything and met a tragic end.

In this life, everyone will face judgment on equal terms.

But fighting alone is for fools. He still needs someone powerful on his side.

Xie Qingchi, the new head of the Xie family of Shoucheng.

His senior from the same department in college, and an obstacle to the bottom's career in the original novel. Decisive and ruthless, with ironclad methods, he never lets his emotions show and has almost no weaknesses.

The infamous villain of the story, every inch of him radiating the icy ruthlessness of a man in power.

But Song Yu vaguely remembers that when he was at his most helpless in his previous life, it was Xie Qingchi who helped him.

[Reading Guide]

1. Both leads are cleansed of their past baggage. Agent top and CEO bottom, beautiful top and handsome bottom, both are swoon-worthy.

2. They are mutually devoted across both lifetimes, and the original novel's "bottom" and the top were only connected by self-interest. Both leads are sexually inexperienced, and neither has even had a first kiss.

3. The top is no weakling. He's a life-spending player, a refined scoundrel with a life as fragile as paper, and a gentle devoted husband transformed into a scummy, unhinged master dog trainer.

4. This is not a traditional everyone-falls-for-him story. Not everyone who sees the top falls in love with him. The top's only one-sided crush is on the bottom, and the bottom's only one-sided crush is on the top. A romance between two mature men in their thirties.

5. This is not a realistic entertainment-industry story. The setting is extremely, extremely fictional. Readers who demand strict realism, beware.

6. The main focus is punishing scumbags, making an escape, and falling in love. Romance takes precedence over plot. Read at your own discretion, and please do not give writing advice.

Theme: Break out of the cage and be reborn after emerging from your cocoon