A Brooding Man's Guide to Secretly Loving Someone

[Slow-to-Realize Heroine × Brooding Older Man]

Rule One of Secretly Loving Someone: Become a Harmless Dog

At twenty-one, Xia Xiaoxing fell for a man.

He was high above her reach, yet always gentle and composed around her.

His breath was hot, his gaze burning. He pulled the Buddhist beads from her hand. "Don't seek a connection with Buddha anymore. Seek one with me."

On a typhoon night, he ran to her door and looked up at her pitifully, like a puppy. "My wrist really hurts."

Drunk, he breathed in the skin at the nape of her neck and said hoarsely, "Xiaoxing, don't leave me alone..."

Rule Two of Secretly Loving Someone: Keep Her by Your Side

When Xia Xiaoxing was bullied, the culprit first had their wages docked, then somehow ended up in prison.

Xia Xiaoxing told Ji Ning about it as if it were an amusing story. Ji Ning merely smiled in agreement.

Xia Xiaoxing changed jobs and moved into a new dormitory.

Her usually kind landlord insisted on kicking her out. Ji Ning said, "Stay at my place for now. You can look for somewhere else later."

Rule Three of Secretly Loving Someone: Don't Let Her Discover the Real Me

After Xia Xiaoxing and Ji Ning began dating, she found old draft papers and the school uniform she'd lost, tucked away in a locked cabinet.

After they married, Xia Xiaoxing accidentally opened Ji Ning's private photo album.

It was full of photos of her from her school days.

A chill crept down Xia Xiaoxing's back.

*

No one knew that President Ji, sharp-tongued and demanding, had secretly loved someone for a very long time.

If her life had a script, he was nothing more than a bit-part actor who appeared in one fleeting scene.

Much later, one of his subordinates witnessed the whole process of President Ji coaxing her.

They had never seen him like this, smiling gently and calmly, while the desire in his eyes ran fathomlessly deep.

As though he wanted to take the girl before him apart and devour her.

Theme: I don't want to be a bit-part actor