I Abandoned My Childhood Friend for Three Months

After being forced into an otherworldly conquest game called the Genius Challenge, she had to abandon her gentle childhood friend for three months. She swore fiercely:

Once she made it back alive, she'd win over her sickly, gentle, handsome childhood friend, who loved her desperately, all over again.

Then she took a Forget-Love Pill that lasted three months, forcibly cutting off her feelings because she didn't want this damned game dragging more people into the wager.

But one day, she discovered that having a [Golden Finger] like [Equivalent Exchange] counted as normal in her family.

Her father, whom she'd thought had abandoned his wife and daughter, was the leader of a group of superpowered individuals, an immortal who could never die. Her mother was a nutritionist for superpowered people who had disguised herself as an ordinary nurse and office drone. Her older brother was a genius contestant in the same generation as her, a superpowered individual-in-training who could crush iron rings with his bare hands.

Even her childhood friend had secretly joined the game behind her back, and he was practically two different people.

You mean the arrogant, obsessive partner she married into in another world, the one who'd been dumped by his girlfriend and started indiscriminately attacking everyone with his sharp tongue, was her gentle childhood friend?

That big shot who treated strategy like food and scolded her like she was an idiot was really the simple childhood friend who always wanted a hug?

That stubborn man she'd chased for miles without daring to confess to, who openly wanted to force his ex-girlfriend to love him and had put her through the misery of unrequited love, was really the childhood friend who loved her desperately?

So she went crazy chasing her childhood friend in another world, only to be rejected, while he went mad with obsession in the real world, desperately trying to get back together with her?

So that one-use Forget-Love Pill only affected her body? Once her feelings were stripped away, she really did start seeing herself as a substitute.

What childhood friend lies that he's sick and has to go abroad, then disappears for three years, calling her every day to tell her to wait for him so they can get married? Doesn't that mean he's treating her as a backup option?

What childhood friend's mother keeps a photo of him kissing a blonde beauty in her wallet and looks at it every day, beaming with delight? And the blonde beauty looks eight-tenths like her.

They hadn't told her that this was her twin brother, who had lost a game of rock-paper-scissors and tearfully dressed as a woman to flirt with her childhood friend and test his romantic conquest skills. It was a thoroughly embarrassing chapter in their past, and they'd been sworn enemies ever since.

She hadn't even known she had a brother. She'd always thought she came from a single-parent family.

Her childhood friend, who rushed back from abroad, really did try to force her to love him.

He chased her to and from school every day, tutored her, cooked for her with his own hands, insisted on keeping her in his house like a queen, and flirted with her every chance he got. Wasn't this all something he'd learned from his ex-girlfriend?

When the truth finally comes out, who'll be more embarrassed, her or her childhood friend?

But after the pill wore off three months later and all her memories came rushing back, her face really did turn red.

It turned out that from beginning to end, there had been no substitute and no settling for less.

Only two people keeping secrets from each other, pursuing each other, and going mad for each other, with an exclusive love all their own.

Bonus Scene One:

Everyone says Mu Dingxue is the emotional switch that sets Nan Cheng, the top seed of South City, off. Give it the slightest flick and Nan Cheng will explode. But she insists she's just a substitute.

Everyone is baffled: Where did she get that idea? Would that guy Nan Cheng ever fall for someone else?

Unable to hit or scold her, Nan Cheng takes his frustration out on the base's equipment, growing less and less human. Then Xue Simu, her brother-in-law with inside information, posts a photo of Nan Cheng cooking in a tank top and a sex apron. The pose is too much to look at.

He's just flirting, but people still ask if he's gay. He's got a bit of a sultry vibe.

They shower each other with affection like this, yet both act like they're nursing a grudge. One says she's a substitute, and the other says he's forcing her to love him.

Bonus Scene Two:

In another world, the strongest married couple have each married twice, once apiece. They call each other mortal enemies, rivals, people they absolutely have to defeat.

Just answer one question: What mortal enemy would die for someone else?

[Content Warnings]

A lively, mischievous girl x a two-faced, brooding male lead. Pure romance before the college entrance exam, kisses only, nothing else.

The leads are strictly one-on-one. They have different bodies in two worlds, with similar looks but different styles.

Sweet, doting, slow-burn romance. Not purely focused on feelings, with plot and character growth.

Theme: Live well, and rely on your own efforts to stay alive!