Xu Jiangshu smiles as he presses a knife against his own wrist and asks her:
"Why isn't your boyfriend dead yet?"
"Doesn't he drink the water I prepare for you every day?"
Jiang Lan freezes. Her phone screen flashes, and she sees another message from Song Qi:
"Are you home? My throat's been feeling uncomfortable a lot lately."
Only then does she fully realize that the man trying to steal her boyfriend is serious.
/
Song Qi is the kind of person every girl would like. Jiang Lan is no exception. And as it happens, Song Qi seems to like her too, so barring any surprises, the two of them will get together.
But then something unexpected happens: she meets Xu Jiangshu.
Song Qi's roommate, and also the person her own roommate has supposedly been chatting with.
He's young, handsome, and so beautiful he barely looks like a man.
He looks exactly like Song Qi did in her memory when she first met him.
Especially his eyes, so quiet and dark.
So whenever she's with him, she often finds herself in a daze, and regularly ignores Song Qi's warning that Xu Jiangshu isn't as simple as he seems.
Until the day Xu Jiangshu takes her to the river. She can't refuse when he holds her chin and presses his finger between her lips.
But he doesn't kiss her. He stops just short.
"So you really have forgotten me."
"Did you make that same face when he kissed you?"
His voice carries a bitter mockery and despair far beyond his years.
He peels off the bandage on her knee,
revealing a bruise, purple and green, spread across the skin.
The night feels hazy, the river breeze gentle.
In that moment, she suddenly remembers the little boy with the same dark eyes.
So it was always you I was looking for.
-Loving you was the bruise that lingered throughout my adolescence, impossible to bring to the surface or press away.
-Love is pain.
College / old school uniforms / silhouettes / bandages / bruises / green glass at the train station / stealing someone's partner
A man with an unrequited crush / a male interloper with skin hunger syndrome / sharp-tongued, sadistic yandere x lively, laid-back girl
Also known as: When Anxious Attachment Meets Avoidant Attachment
Reader's Guide:
1. A wild, all-out push and pull, with no limits.
2. The leads have no morals or principles. They are imperfect characters.
3. They break up and get back together, and use other people.
4. Both are each other's first and only.
5. The male lead has a filthy mouth but is actually a masochist.
New blurb archived on 2025.7.15
Theme: Love and desire are about consuming and assimilating.
