A flirtatious, push-and-pull beauty who acts like an empty-headed trophy wife × a gifted heir who spoke too soon and is now eating his words
Fu Boxi, the top young heir of one of Shanghai’s most powerful families, was arrogant, aloof, and carefree. A world boxing champion known overseas, he was the center of everyone’s attention.
Qing Shuangfan, a rising Hong Kong avant-garde artist, was as cool and radiant as the moon. Gentle and stunning, with limpid eyes and a willowy figure, she rarely smiled and had few friends.
The two of them should have been worlds apart, with nothing connecting them.
But Qing Shuangfan had been dating Fu Boxi’s good friend, Cheng Jing, for six months.
Her name came up around Fu Boxi all the time.
On the phone, Cheng Jing was so besotted he could barely think straight. He praised Qing Shuangfan’s waist, as slender as a willow sprouting in spring and soft to the touch, so narrow he could measure it with one hand. Her Cantonese was so sweet and sultry, especially when she called him “baby.”
Fu Boxi couldn’t care less. So she had a slim waist and a sweet mouth. She was just a pretty face.
Then he heard that his good friend Cheng Jing had been dumped by that pretty face, and brutally at that. He’d lavished her with money and affection, but never even got to sleep with her before she coldly threw him away.
The young playboy had lost all face in Shanghai. He was standing on a rooftop, threatening to jump, and the whole city knew about it.
Fu Boxi had never been one to meddle in his friends’ love lives. Watching his good friend cry like a dog, he looked at him with contempt.
What was so special about some Hong Kong beauty who spoke a little Cantonese? Wasn’t it pathetic to threaten suicide over a woman? What a loser.
Even if a pretty face like that threw herself at him, he wouldn’t be interested. He wouldn’t give her a second look.
But before long, Qing Shuangfan became the woman he was going to marry in a whirlwind wedding.
The Fu Group and Hong Kong’s Ding Group were joining forces through marriage, a perfect match of powerful families.
Qing Shuangfan was the adopted daughter of the person in charge of the Ding Group.
/
In the six months since moving to Shanghai, Qing Shuangfan had heard people badmouthing her more than anything else. Plenty of them called her a heartless, manipulative beauty. After she dumped Cheng Jing, a rich young master of Shanghai, he’d even threatened to jump off a building, and she hadn’t batted an eye.
Qing Shuangfan didn’t care what other people said. Only she knew Cheng Jing had brought it on himself. She’d gotten close to him for one reason: revenge.
Then, at the scene of Cheng Jing’s rooftop stunt, Qing Shuangfan spotted Fu Boxi among his circle of friends. He was handsome and flamboyant, with a boxer’s build and a family and career no one dared cross. He was the hardest man in their group to win over.
She found herself a new goal.
Tame the arrogant, untamable Fu Boxi.
/
After they married, Fu Boxi spent night after night at the boxing gym, deliberately neglecting Qing Shuangfan and keeping his distance. “I can marry you for the sake of my inheritance. But I’m under no obligation to sleep with you or get you pregnant. We can each do as we please.”
Qing Shuangfan kept painting, without even looking up. “You may have no obligation, but I have a mission. How about I find someone else to get me pregnant and give you a pair of horns?”
Fu Boxi: “Suit yourself.”
/
More than half a year later, after hearing all sorts of stories about her, he found himself in an SUV parked outside the city. Inside, a man was drenched in sweat, his movements more intense than the fat raindrops pounding against the windows. His kisses were tangled and pleading.
Fu Boxi’s breath burned against the lips of the pretty face he’d once claimed he wasn’t interested in. “Was the man who took you home last night your first love?”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Are you really going to give me horns and have someone else get you pregnant?”
Qing Shuangfan said, “Fu Boxi, don’t you think you’re acting pathetic right now?”
“You’re going back on your word?”
“Weren’t you the one who said I could do as I pleased?”
Looking at Qing Shuangfan as she answered him with a coquettish pout, Fu Boxi wanted to punch the first love in her heart to death.
And a thought flashed through his mind.
He was even more pathetic, even more of a loser, than his good friend Cheng Jing.
He’d spent more money, given her his whole heart, and offered her his body.
He’d slept with her, and he was even her legal husband.
But she’d never given him her heart.
Despondent, Fu Boxi wanted to find somewhere to jump, too.
But he was afraid that if he ended it all, his wife would just marry someone else.
Fu Boxi buried his forehead in the crook of Qing Shuangfan’s neck, his voice soft as could be.
“Hubby broke his word. Hubby’s a little dog.”
His fists could beat the whole world,
but he was happy to lose to this Hong Kong beauty.
A beast only bows to true love.
/
Bonus scene:
In a corner of the hospital reeking of disinfectant, Qing Shuangfan hugged her knees and buried her face in them, letting out a helpless sob.
A low, cool voice came from above her head. “Hey, want some?”
Qing Shuangfan lifted her face. Her skin was smudged with dirt, her eyes glistening with tears. She met the gaze of a foul-mouthed, handsome boy with a bruise on his face.
The boy held out a piece of mint gum.
She hadn’t had mint gum in ages. Her grimy hand took the candy from him.
Then the boy said,
“Have some candy, and everything will be sweet from now on.”
Hearing that, Qing Shuangfan held back a sob. Eyes red, she asked softly, “Thank you. What’s your name?”
The boy’s voice carried an air of nobility. “Fu Boxi.”
For the next ten years, Qing Shuangfan lived in Hong Kong.
But she never forgot the boy who shone on her, as dazzling as an aurora beneath the moon.
His name was Fu Boxi.
Theme: True love may come late, but it will come
