Jealousy

Cheng Xi once mistook Yan Jin’s possessiveness for devotion, but his attention fades until she can hear the impatient thoughts he hides behind a perfect smile.

Just as their relationship fractures, Qin Zheng—the dangerously obsessive first love she never truly forgot—returns from abroad determined to reclaim her.

Caught between a boyfriend who realizes too late what he has lost and an ex learning that love cannot be a cage, Cheng Xi must decide which kind of devotion she actually wants.

I fell in love with my rival—and my roommate.

The good news: she was a woman.

The bad news: she was straight.

On the surface, Pei Ruoqing and I couldn’t stand each other.

In secret, I was practically begging, “Big Sister, slap me.”

We stayed tangled up like that until our five-year college reunion.

After the reunion, I used my drunkenness as an excuse to climb into her car.

When I saw that our old class president was still hopelessly in love with her, I deliberately picked a fight.

She shot back coldly, “He likes me.

Does that really make you so jealous?”

Before I could answer, an out-of-control truck came hurtling toward us.

I threw myself over her without thinking—and died protecting her.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on freshman move-in day, staring straight at Pei Ruoqing as she pushed open our dorm-room door.

I was He Xingxiao’s kept canary. In bed, I slacked off with a terrible attitude.

After a while, I’d start whining that it hurt, that I was tired.

But when it came to shopping, I could speed-walk for miles, spending his money like my life depended on it.

Then one day, I saw a row of floating comments: [The vicious supporting female character’s good days are almost over. The beloved, universally adored heroine is about to meet the male lead.]

[She’ll scheme against the heroine again and again, and the male lead will gradually grow disgusted with her.]

[The male lead hasn’t even dumped her yet, but she’ll run off with his money and a fake rich heir. In the end, that fake rich heir will steal all her savings, harvest her kidney, and she’ll die miserably in a rental apartment.]

[She deserves it! Only a kind, non-materialistic good girl like the heroine deserves a tycoon’s love!]

I did not want to lose this job that paid three hundred thousand a month.

From then on, I stopped slacking.

In bed, I performed like I’d been injected with pure adrenaline, refusing to leave even the tiniest opening for the heroine.

He Xingxiao looked at me with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Are you trying to make me die in bed so you can inherit everything I own?”

I booked an appointment with a specialist for pain during sex, only to discover that the intern sitting behind the kindly old doctor was my longtime crush.

The professor turned around to quiz him.

“He, what usually causes pain during intercourse?”

He Shiyu looked past his silver-haired mentor and stared straight at me.

After a long silence, he answered in a voice cold enough to splinter ice, each word striking like a blow.

“Rough movements.”

“A lack of restraint.”

“Excessive frequency.”

“Mechanical injury.”

The professor nodded in satisfaction and continued, “And what information should we ask this patient for now?”

He Shiyu thought for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice slipped out of control, trembling with accusation.

“Meng Yin, these past two months… who exactly have you been with?”

My husband absolutely loathed his new graduate student.

He even went so far as to cause a scene in front of the Dean, demanding that she be transferred to another research group.

He claimed she was morally corrupt and a disgrace to academia.

That was, until the fire alarm went off. His custom-made suit was soaked through as he draped it over her head.

He pushed past me, carrying her in his arms like a princess as he rushed down the stairs.

Back when I was at my most innocent, I wanted the person I had a crush on to remember me.

So I kept deliberately controlling my scores, making him come in second in our grade for three whole years.

He got desperate and asked me out, trying to throw me off my game.

I agreed with a smile-then turned around and dumped him before he could dump me.

The good news: he really did never forget me for the rest of his life.

The bad news?

Years later, when I applied for a job, he was the interviewer.

He tossed my résumé aside without a second thought.

“This one won’t do. Next.”

Married life was so dull that I got myself a canary to pass the time.

Who would have thought the news would reach my husband, the man I’d married for an alliance? From that day on, he started coming home more and more often.

He even… kept finding new ways to surprise me. Until one day, he asked, “When are you going to take me to meet that canary you’re keeping outside?”

“What is it about him that has you so fascinated?”

I froze. “You want to meet him?”

After he gave me a firm yes, I took him to meet the bird I’d been raising.

A Gloster Canary.

To surprise my online boyfriend, I secretly traveled thousands of miles to his university.

When I arrived, I happened to see him coming back to campus from outside.

I was just about to go up and say hi when he walked right past me without so much as a glance.

?

A moment later, my phone buzzed.

“Holy crap, babe. I just saw someone who looked exactly like you.”

“But you’re the only one in my heart, so I didn’t even spare another woman a second look.”

I was so mad I laughed. Right then and there, I snapped a selfie in front of the school gate and sent it to him.

“Maybe try taking another look?”

It was the fourth year of my marriage to my rival Alpha.

He had been in a car accident and lost his memory, with his recollections stopping right before our wedding.

When he saw my wedding ring, his voice was laced with ridicule.

“Who was unlucky enough to marry you?”

My five-year unrequited love has come to an end.

It ended because Shen Chen’s “white moonlight,” Su Yue, has returned.

Half a month ago, on the first day of autumn, I made some stewed pear soup to bring to Shen Chen.

Shen Chen smokes constantly and never listens when I tell him to stop, so I’ve made it a habit to prepare stewed pears with fritillary bulbs for him whenever the seasons change.

When I arrived, Shen Chen opened the door shirtless.

As the door swung wide, the air in the room smelled thick and suggestive. The scent of body wash clinging to him was the very one we had bought together.

I looked down and immediately spotted a pair of round-toed, mid-heel shoes. They were cute, yet they felt like an eyesore.

“Who is it?” a sweet, cloying female voice called out from the bedroom.

Shen Chen took the pear soup from my hands. His eyes were filled with guilt, but he prioritized his options in an instant.

“It’s just delivery.”