Cohabitation

When I was five, my father brought home a handsome deaf boy and made him my child husband.

I prided myself on being a progressive woman; since childhood, I always told people he was my brother. I never expected that, more than ten years later, one drunken night,

I slept with him – and forgot about it.

My brother went on a trip with a few friends.

Mom told me to video-call him and check in.

The call connected, and the screen filled with a man’s bare upper body, his pecs on full display.

He rubbed his hair with a towel and said casually, as if it were the most natural thing in the world,

“Your brother’s taking a shower in the room next door. His charging cable broke, so his phone’s charging over here with me.”

I stared at the image on the screen, unable to snap out of it for a long moment.

Then that fair, handsome face suddenly leaned closer to the camera, a wicked smile curving his lips.

“Am I that good-looking? Want to see for yourself in person sometime?”

When we were kids, I told my childhood friend, “I like your best friend, but don’t tell him.”

Then came his best friend’s wedding.

I grabbed my childhood friend by the throat. “Wow, you really can keep a secret.”

He let out a cold scoff. “Say you like him one more time, and I’ll beat your ass.”

After graduating from college, I moved into a shared rental with my rich second-generation boyfriend and started a business from scratch.

I was the one building the company. He was the one suffering through it with me.

Every day, I came home exhausted to our small apartment.

And every time, he would have a fragrant, steaming meal ready for me.

Life was hard, but we both felt happy.

Until one day, I saw the barrage comments:

[Oh my god, the male lead is still here suffering through this startup with his ex-girlfriend. When is the female lead finally going to show up?]

[The male lead is still too young. His parents already paved a golden road for him, but he refuses to take it and insists on staying in a rental eating instant noodles with his ex.]

[It’s fine. Once the ex-girlfriend’s startup fails and she starts drinking and getting violent, and later even cheats on him right in front of him, he’ll obediently go back and inherit the family business.]

[But honestly, summer, a rental apartment, bare skin, heads down and working hard… the sexual tension between these two is insane.]

The first time I met Li Shuyu…

He had black hair, black clothes, and black-rimmed glasses.

He looked ascetic and buttoned-up.

Only after spending some time with him did I realize just how wrong I had been.

This seemingly aloof man would take off his glasses at night,

put in his lip stud and tongue stud, and say thickly,

“Don’t tremble, jiejie.”

As the oldest unmarried young adult in my family, I had been suffering under the pressure to get married for years.

Eventually, I simply gave up fighting it.

My mom said she was so worried she could not sleep.

So I drove two hundred kilometers overnight, got home at three in the morning, stood by her bed, and pried her eyelids open.

My mom said everyone in the family was laughing at her because I refused to get married.

The next second, I tagged everyone in the family group chat:

[My mom says everyone is laughing at her because I won’t get married. I came to ask, who exactly is laughing at her? @everyone]

My cousin was the first to start a message chain:

[Your little cousin is not laughing at her.]

Then came an orderly line of replies:

[Auntie is not laughing at her.]

[Uncle is not laughing at her.]

[Second Cousin is not laughing at her.]

[Dad is not laughing at her.]

[…]

Jiang Yerao is young, beautiful, naïve, and proud. Even though she knows Ruan Pingshan is only willing to give her money and affection, not an official place by his side, she stays with him because she likes him too much. While enjoying the sweetness of being spoiled, she is also stung by the realities of class differences, marriage, and her own self-respect. Little by little, she realizes that being nothing more than a pampered canary can never truly put her at his side.

With the encouragement of her friends and the push of her career, Jiang Yerao goes from relying on Ruan Pingshan to running her own buyer’s boutique. She learns how to judge people’s intentions, protect herself, and rethink both love and independence. Meanwhile, through her transformation, Ruan Pingshan gradually lets go of his fear of marriage and family relationships and begins to face his own feelings. The two of them pull against each other, misunderstand each other, and test each other along the way, until in the end, they choose each other in a more equal and open-hearted way.

In my fifth year of trying to make it in Beijing, my boyfriend cheated on me with an intern.

The other woman posted his massive pay stub online.

The watermark on the image was clear as day.

He was done for.

As a washed-up actor with no buzz to my name,

I decided to take the plunge and shoot a BL drama for the traffic.

When I saw that my fanservice partner was Xi Sheng, I was dumbfounded.

“You’re a top-tier star. Why are you taking the plunge?”

Later, he held me in his arms, took his time teasing me, and bit my ear with a soft laugh.

“For this.”

While I was playing with my cat’s tail, the B-king school heartthrob suddenly video-called me.

“Stop touching him.”

“That part of me… I think it has an Empathy Link with your cat’s tail.”

I didn’t understand, so I asked him, “What part?”

His face flushed scarlet. Abandoning all dignity, he simply tilted the camera downward.

Holy crap. Was I even allowed to see this for free?

Was he hiding a bottle of mineral water in his pants?