The Inferior Student at the Aristocratic Academy

My next novel will be The Widowed Heartthrob and His Stepson in the Apocalypse. The blurb is at the very bottom. Please add it to your favorites!

Shen Yan transmigrated into the role of a specially admitted student who had originally been sponsored by F1 at a noble academy.

But not long after he arrived, he angered F1 at the opening ceremony, and F1 cut off all his funding.

The story that followed was only too predictable. The kindhearted protagonist, who had dropped out because he was poor, met F1, who sponsored him as a specially admitted student. Then he met F2, F3, and F4 in turn.

None of that had anything to do with Shen Yan. He was just worried that, with his sponsorship gone, every little thing would cost money: tuition, living expenses, and housing.

Shen Yan was so broke his pockets were cleaner than his face, and finding something to eat became his top priority.

To finish school, Shen Yan had no choice but to turn to someone else.

F1 and his entourage looked down on Shen Yan. The other specially admitted students hated him for switching sides, and F2, who offered him a helping hand, was only competing with F1 and messing with him in the process.

He became the most hated person on campus.

Shen Yan didn't care. He just wanted to keep his head down until the original protagonist enrolled, stay out of trouble until graduation, save enough money, and get away from F4 and the bloody battlefield where they used cannon fodder to settle their scores.

Everyone at school knew Shen Yan was a freak no one wanted near them.

They all said they hated him.

The whispers in the hallway stopped as he passed. Threatening letters appeared in his desk every day, their ink still wet. Whenever he was called on, everyone shared a knowing, subtle pause.

But where he couldn't see them,

They used revulsion to hide their obsession, and ostracism to compensate for their yearning.

The deliberately hushed laughter from the back of the classroom concealed sticky, lingering stares. Throats bobbed before the lock on the sports storeroom turned. IP addresses overlapped beneath trending posts on the anonymous forum...

This pack of mad dogs tore at one another's throats, but whenever his gaze swept over them, they expertly donned human skin. The arrogant, the violent, the gentle, the aloof: in the end, they all trembled as they offered their collars to his fingertips.

--

My life was a script that had already been written.

Gu Linchuan. That name stood for power, wealth, and an innate sense of superiority.

Until that person appeared.

--Ridiculous. I, and the entire world I lived in, were nothing but a few lines of text for someone's amusement.

The specially admitted student I had once looked down on was defined by the book as cannon fodder doomed to a tragic end. Yet my gaze lingered on him, beyond my control.

I watched his silent profile, his back as he endured everything, and the blazing fire in his eyes. It was a lowly yet fierce vitality, completely at odds with my perfect world, yet it made me feel more alive than ever before.

Of course, he was mine.

A fire at my engagement banquet destroyed everything I had carefully plotted.

Time ran backward. The world reset. Everyone returned to their places, their memories wiped clean, as if that engagement, which had come to nothing, had never happened.

Only I remembered.

In the new timeline, my best friend put his arm around someone and introduced him to me with a smile:

"This is my fiance. Look after him."

I looked at the face I had longed for day and night, now marked by unfamiliarity and distance.

He gave me a polite nod, distant as if I were truly just a good friend of his fiance.

...Mine.

The fiance who had once been mine, and was now dead.

Mine.

[Arrogant, secretly passionate, aloof beauty of a ghostly widower gong] x [Resilient, fiercely alive, vicious beauty with a rabid-dog streak]

Here's a preview of my upcoming novel, The Widowed Heartthrob and His Stepson in the Apocalypse.

Yu Xing woke up in the body of a young rich man's new wife. Her newlywed husband dropped dead on the spot, leaving behind a huge fortune and a gloomy stepson, Ji Huang, who was in a wheelchair and only a few years younger than him.

Then the apocalypse arrived. Her husband was dead, her fortune was gone, and the zombies were here.

Yu Xing's only lifeline was a card-drawing System linked to his stepson's will to survive.

However--

Looking at Ji Huang's useless legs and his indifferent, lifeless eyes, uninterested in everything under the sun...

Yu Xing realized in despair that his stepson seemed to have absolutely no desire to live!

The System panel was dark. Draws remaining: zero.

Yu Xing struggled, clumsily and with all his might, to find a way to survive in the wasteland while caring for a disabled person.

He scoured the ruins and corpses, his fingers worn raw as he dug out half a bottle of water and a small piece of food. Again and again, he evaded zombies and raiders, then returned to Ji Huang in a battered state.

"Ji Huang! Dinner's ready!" "Ji Huang! Look at the new blanket!" "Ji Huang, we'll make it through this!"

Ji Huang raised his inorganic-looking eyes and asked indifferently, "You really want to live?"

Yu Xing: Of course I want to live, TvT!

The System remained silent. Ji Huang, though tired of life, still used his remaining connections and wealth to keep Yu Xing safe.

Yu Xing stared at the empty System panel and fell into thought: Could it be... the System was broken?

Until their shelter collapsed with a crash and a tide of zombies poured in.

Grinning raiders surrounded Yu Xing and reached for him.

Ji Huang's pupils contracted. He shielded Yu Xing with his body, his excessive grip warping the wheelchair's metal armrest.

In that instant, the unbearable fear of losing him overwhelmed everything else.

[Ding! Survival instinct detected in bound target! Emergency protocol activated! SSR skill "Blink" forcibly used.]

Supplies gradually became plentiful, life no longer seemed hopeless, and Ji Huang's legs slowly began to recover. But his possessiveness toward Yu Xing grew just as wildly as his will to survive.

"What did you trade for the food?"

"Did you smile at them again today?"

"Who was the person who brought you back? Where did my new coat come from? Which hand did he touch you with?"

Ji Huang hated being disabled. He hated everyone who brought Yu Xing home.

He feared anything Yu Xing brought back, suspecting that every supply had been obtained through some filthy bargain.

He greedily drank in the warmth and vitality Yu Xing brought him, yet the hungry looks from others drove him mad with jealousy.

In their new home after the apocalypse, the lights were off.

The moment Yu Xing stepped inside, a powerful force pulled him into a tight embrace. A familiar scent surrounded him, and an out-of-control strength held him captive.

The darkness heightened every sensation. Ji Huang's breath was scorching as he buried his face against Yu Xing's neck and murmured in a low, strained voice:

"Will you leave me one day, too?"

Yu Xing looked confused and waved the top-tier medical card he'd just drawn. "Mm-hm, I won't leave! Look, this can heal your legs!"

Ji Huang tightened his arms around him, engraving that promise into his bones.

--You'll never leave me.

Clumsy, slow-witted, optimistic heartthrob stepmom VS gloomy, obsessive, world-weary disabled stepson

Theme: Study hard and strive for self-reliance