Beyond the Mundane

Completed story | Coercive pursuit | Eight-year age gap | Stealing someone’s love

Hong Kong tycoon x impoverished college student | Polished gentleman with a wicked side x beautiful, resilient, honest girl

A month after enrolling at the University of Hong Kong, He Cheng brought local specialties to a mansion on the Peak, where she met Zong Xubai, who had supported her for seven years.

He was impossibly handsome, noble, refined, and impeccably courteous. He thoughtfully asked whether she had adjusted to life in Hong Kong and how her studies were going.

Her benefactor was blessed with peerless looks and a gentle, kind nature. She let down her guard, grateful to him and willing to do whatever he asked.

Then He Cheng’s long-distance boyfriend came to Hong Kong to visit her. Zong Xubai, who was usually buried in a thousand affairs, repeatedly found excuses to join their dates. He was no longer the humble gentleman he usually seemed to be. He grew aggressive and intimidating toward her boyfriend, acting as though he had no qualms about anything.

He Cheng defended her boyfriend and shot back at him.

Zong Xubai’s gaze traveled slowly over her stubborn face. He smiled gently, as if he didn’t take it to heart.

But in a dimly lit restroom, Zong Xubai seemed to have been provoked. With the rakish air of a privileged young master, he spoke with such apparent sincerity that He Cheng’s reason crumbled. Flustered and shocked, she snapped at him for the first time. “Stop! I need to go back.”

He wasn’t bothered by her anger in the slightest. His seductive peach-blossom eyes were wicked and wanton.

“After all this, do you think I’d let you go back to him?”

He Cheng repeatedly insisted she was faithful to her boyfriend. Zong Xubai smiled inscrutably, removed his gold-rimmed glasses, and slowly wiped the lenses. His thin lips formed the words, “I don’t mind you having one on each arm, like you do now.”

-

Zong Xubai’s change in attitude made He Cheng’s scalp prickle. Afraid he was acting on a whim, she didn’t want to get emotionally entangled with him. She borrowed money from a friend to start paying off her debt and ruthlessly distanced herself from him.

Then her boyfriend got into trouble, and her family fell into financial difficulty. She had no choice but to turn to Zong Xubai.

On a rainy night, she knelt on a cashmere rug, shivering with her arms wrapped around herself. Zong Xubai brought a dry towel and lifted her into his arms. She trembled against him like a soaked sparrow, not daring to raise her eyes.

His scorching breath brushed her ear. “Starting today, I’m your boyfriend.”

Inspired by the opening quote, adapted from Lin Zhao’s “Liu Xi”

| SC, HE, bittersweet and sweet

| The male lead is forceful and possessive beneath his gentle, gentlemanly exterior. If coercive pursuit makes you uncomfortable, feel free to drop the story without telling me. I’m sensitive.

| The setting and background of this story are fictionalized

Upcoming story

Strangers to lovers after marriage: “Love Notes for Ordinary Days”

● Scatterbrained, sweet girl VS aloof, fatherly man

● Strangers to lovers after marriage | Six-year age gap | Young master VS junior employee | Healing fairytale

1

Fang Touyue, a small-town academic who graduated from a second-tier university, was at a dinner with her internship company the day the civil service exam results came out.

Her parents’ hopes had come to nothing, so she drank to drown her sorrows.

The next day, she woke in a luxurious king-size bed and remembered everything from the night before.

She hadn’t lost her virginity, but she’d humiliated herself. She’d probably have to find another job.

She left the room and hid around a corner to observe. The homeowner was having breakfast at the kitchen island. As if sensing her, he raised his eyes and glanced at her impassively.

“One thousand for the night. I’ll deduct it from your salary.”

Fang Touyue: “I can replace the mattress, sheets, and duvet cover…”

“Hastens. Two hundred and thirty thousand.”

Then deduct it from her salary, after all.

Chen Junxi was the heir to the company where Fang Touyue worked. Young and promising, he was a man of few words and ruthless action. Everyone both loved and feared him, and he was known as the “Jade-Faced Yama.”

“Want some?”

The man rumored to be difficult to get along with suddenly asked her in a friendly tone.

She never expected to run into Chen Junxi’s grandmother over breakfast, much less have the older woman mistake her for his girlfriend.

At first, Chen Junxi said, “Play along, and I’ll waive the thousand.”

Then, “Marry me, and you can sleep in that 230,000-yuan bed all you want.”

2

They secretly registered their marriage and moved in together. At work, they pretended not to know each other; at home, they slept in separate rooms.

Fang Touyue thought this marriage of mutual convenience would eventually come to an end.

Then, at a high school reunion, Fang Touyue got tipsy and fell into the arms of a male classmate she had once liked. Chen Junxi arrived to pick her up and saw them.

That night, he cornered her in the entryway, his hot breath drawing near. “I said we could take things slowly, but your heart still has to move closer to mine, little by little.”

Before Fang Touyue could speak, he kissed her lip hard for the first time, lifting her by the hips as he lost control. They stumbled into the master bedroom, clinging to each other.

His voice was low and husky. “I have no plans to marry twice. I hope Mrs. Chen will give me the chance to stay the course, all the way to the end.”

Fang Touyue had never experienced the flutter of a teenage crush, but after marrying, she fell head over heels. Chen Junxi pampered her until she grew more and more spoiled.

When she went on a month-long business trip with a colleague, she couldn’t sleep on the hotel bed. Chen Junxi personally delivered a Supima cotton sheet set overnight.

On the third day of their cold war, Fang Touyue got food poisoning at work after eating the breakfast she’d made herself.

The usually calm and levelheaded heir abandoned a business meeting worth tens of millions and carried her straight to the hospital.

His assistant followed them the whole way and heard the heir and his wife talking.

Fang Touyue lay weakly in her hospital bed. “I’m sorry. I made the company lose a deal worth tens of millions.”

Chen Junxi held her slender hand. His cool voice carried a hint of apology. “It’s my fault for not treating my wife well.”

That was how their marriage came to light.

Everyone at the company was dumbfounded, then realized there had been signs all along:

The afternoon snacks at the office were all flavors Fang Touyue liked.

They wore watches from the same brand. It was the cheapest thing Chen Junxi owned, yet he treasured it like a prized possession.

…

-

On the night of Chen Junxi’s thirtieth birthday, his friends teased him into talking about the luckiest moment of his life.

He remembered the company dinner that day, when he had driven past a bus stop.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, he brought home a drunk girl who had said that when girls grew up, they didn’t have a home.

And together, they made a home of their own.

Later, in every quiet night and softly glowing morning, as he listened to the girl in his arms breathe gently, he felt he had no regrets in this life.

“Day after day, you are the tender love poem in my long years.”

Theme: Embrace me