There's a Prince with a God Complex in the Mountains

[Upright country girl x fussy, melodramatic crybaby prince]

[Mountain-village version of Pride and Prejudice | Reality show | Mutual salvation]

In the spring of 2010, the reality show Trading Lives became a nationwide sensation.

While Xu Sirui played games at an internet cafe, he heard people around him discussing the show and couldn't help sneering. A dumb show with a totally scripted plot, and people still get emotionally invested?

But three days later, his parents tricked him into going to a remote mountain village.

A middle-aged man ran toward him with the crew, stretching out his right hand and beaming:

"You must be Xu Sirui, the internet-addicted young master of Meiweijia Food Co., Ltd.! I'm the producer of Trading Lives. A pleasure to meet you! Your parents signed you up for our spoiled-brat reform reality show. For the coming semester, you'll live with a local family and experience the hardships of life in the mountains. We hope you'll kick your internet addiction and turn over a new leaf."

Xu Sirui: "?"

The so-called local was a scruffy country girl with a buzz cut, driving an ox cart. Her skin was dark, her looks had nothing to do with beauty, yet she'd taken the name Zhu Yingning after one of the beautiful spirits in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. Her greatest passion was upholding justice and punishing evil.

--

On Xu Sirui's first day in the mountains, Zhu Yingning decided he had an incurable case of prince syndrome.

On the second day, she suspected he was a pervert.

By the fourth day, the pervert had graduated to being a violent maniac.

It wasn't until the fifth day that she realized he was just a crybaby who put on a tough act.

Zhu Yingning saw a glimmer of hope that he could be reformed.

She taught him to eat flowers, showed him how to play with snap-poppers, helped him get along with his classmates, and tried everything she could to set him on the right path. Just as she was about to succeed, the show was abruptly canceled, and Xu Sirui vanished without a trace.

--

They met again in the capital. She had moved north alone to study, with a snakeskin bag soaked in grease as her luggage.

Beijing was a bustling city where people came and went, burying the dreams of countless outsiders. He became her first anchor in the city. As the waves tossed her about, he held up her whole life.

[Reading Guide]

① A story of curing prince syndrome and a mountain girl striving for a better life. The male lead goes to the countryside in the first part, and the female lead leaves the mountains in the latter part.

② Neither lead is perfect. The male lead has a severe case of prince syndrome. The female lead isn't pretty or sweet. When other people discipline the male lead, it's like training a wolfhound; when the female lead does it, it's like training a beagle.

③ A coming-of-age story with a realistic feel and a somewhat slow burn. This isn't a fast-paced wish-fulfillment novel. It follows the leads from middle school through their working lives.

④ The male lead is sexually inexperienced; the female lead's status is undecided.

⑤ More detailed content warnings are in the author's note for Chapter 28.

[October 13, 2026 note]

It's already been a year since the novel ended! Over the past few days, I found time to fix typos, grammar mistakes, and some awkward phrasing that affected the reading flow. I only made minor edits to the wording; the plot hasn't changed, so read with confidence :3

Theme: I was born to be a mountain, not a stream