An Old Fish Meets the River

[A cold, arrogant, sharp-tongued man becomes a devoted dog for love]

[The chase-back inferno | Four-year age gap | Reunited after a breakup]

Everyone thinks Xia Zhiyu is lucky. Jiang Zhiyan, a defiant and exceptional man, is willing to let her cling to him.

Money, power, status... Whatever she wants, Jiang Zhiyan can give her.

Only Xia Zhiyu thinks she's become a parasitic vine.

In other people's eyes, the best someone like her could hope to be is a mistress.

In reality, she's even less than that.

She's no better than a puppy.

She can only chase after Jiang Zhiyan to no avail, satisfied each day when he rewards her with a pat on the head.

How pitiful. How ridiculous.

More ridiculous still, after he rejects her proposal, Jiang Zhiyan's eyes are still full of mockery. He raises his gaze and laughs coldly.

"Xia Zhiyu, think before you speak. What gives you the right to throw a tantrum at me?"

His tone is haughty, his eyes fixed on her as if she's a clown.

Pale blue smoke drifts through the office. Jiang Zhiyan casually glances at a photo of Xia Zhiyu with her new boyfriend on his best friend's phone, looking every bit as arrogant and unconcerned as ever.

But in every nightmare that haunts him late at night

The radiant smile on Xia Zhiyu's face as she links arms with her boyfriend in the photo pierces Jiang Zhiyan's heart like a knife, tearing apart his flesh and bone until he wakes in unbearable pain.

Tiny points of red glow for a long time. At last, Jiang Zhiyan stubs out his final cigarette in the crowded ashtray, his expression frighteningly calm.

He's won so many cases. There's no reason to lose to the young woman he raised for five years.

Who else but him could make Xia Zhiyu happy?

-

Later, Jiang Zhiyan, always so haughty, reaches out tentatively. He wants to touch her but doesn't dare.

The man everyone sees as the most refined and proud is like a poor stray puppy, stubbornly clinging to his last shred of hope.

He rubs Xia Zhiyu's wrist bone, and, just as she once soothed him countless times, whispers with near-obsessive desperation:

"My sweet fish, please don't leave me."

Theme: If you're unhappy, break up!