Widowed, I Returned to High School, But This Time I Won't Fall in Love

[Defiant, obsessive, devoted hound x spoiled, radiant heiress] In the eyes of outsiders, Jiang Jin is a genius driver who clawed his way out of the underground racing scene: ruthless and defiant, yet devoted only to Pei Xuan, who married him after her family went bankrupt. Everyone says she hit the jackpot. Only Pei Xuan knows he's nothing but a stray dog driven mad by life: She hates his icy fingertips, the centipede-like scars beneath his suit, and most of all his suffocating, silent control, a net so tight it keeps her trapped. Until the car crash, when Jiang Jin shields her with his own body. Even as he dies, he holds her tightly in his arms, his bloodied hands never daring to touch her face. In the first year after Jiang Jin's death, she squanders everything he left her and parties every night. She never dreams of him. In the second year, a lawyer brings her a list of potential new husbands, all from respectable families and gentle in manner. “Mr. Jiang said they had to be decent men. He knew you couldn't stand anything dirty.” In the third year, Pei Xuan is gone too. As she put it, she never meant to follow him in death; she had just taken too many sleeping pills. As her consciousness fades, she finally dreams of him. The young Jiang Jin stands at the mouth of a dim alley and looks back at her, his eyes damp. When she opens her eyes again, she is eighteen once more. Her father is at the height of his success, and she is the pampered princess everyone dotes on. Meanwhile, he has just finished a fight, his buzz cut dusty, fresh cuts bleeding on his face, his clothes worn out. Everyone avoids him like the plague. As gasps fill the room, Pei Xuan walks toward the lonely boy, one step at a time. She smiles brightly and boldly, though her voice carries the trembling and resolve of two lifetimes: “Hey, Jiang. Don't go fool around at the auto shop after school. Do my homework for me.” Only this time, they won't end up together.