Unrequited Love

When I first started dating Xie Mingchen, he had absolutely nothing to his name.

My friends all told me not to be a fool. They said that with my looks and background, I could find any wealthy man I wanted; there was no need to suffer alongside him.

Now that he’s become the high-flying President Xie, a darling of the venture capital world, those same people say I only won out because I made my move early.

They claim that with his current status, surrounded by women of every shape and beauty, I wouldn’t even stand a chance otherwise.

Even my mother has switched sides. She keeps telling me to lower my guard and learn how to act vulnerable. She warns me not to spend all these years with him only to end up with nothing.

I couldn’t help but snap back, “If he doesn’t bring up marriage, am I supposed to beg him for it?”

“That stubborn streak of yours is going to be your downfall!” My mother sighed, frustrated by my lack of initiative. “What else are you going to do if you don’t play along? Are you really going to let someone else enjoy the shade of the tree you planted yourself?”

I didn’t want to argue; I just felt wronged.

Why was it that in this long-drawn-out relationship, I was the one who did the hoping and the one who felt the disappointment? And now, I was still the one expected to drop hints and nudge him into finally taking action.

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.”

I finally plucked up the courage to drug my brother.

Unexpectedly, I wasn’t very tired that night, but I ended up falling into a deep sleep myself and didn’t wake up until dawn the next day.

The second time.

I mustered my courage and tried to drug him again.

Once more, I slept like a log until morning.

When I woke up, my brother was in the kitchen cooking.

The bright morning sun shone on him, making his hair appear almost pale gold.

Hearing me move, he turned around and flashed me a smile.

He looked like an angel descending from heaven.

“Zhiyu.”

“I made your favorite pumpkin pancakes.”

Clutching my aching conscience, I drugged him for the third time that night.

And once again, I enjoyed the sleep of a baby.

-I finally began to suspect my brother.

On the day the divorce was finalized, I booked a high-speed rail ticket back to my hometown. A phone, an ID card, and a bank card with a meager balance were all I had left.

When the butler called to say the young master was crying for his mother, I finally understood that the son I had borne and his father loved the same woman.

Before the train left, I made one last promise: I would never disturb him again.

Wei Ze’s first love got divorced after her husband cheated on her.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he broke up with me and posted to his social media feed:

“I really wish I could go back eight years and change Xu Nianxia’s fate so she never married that scumbag.”

Xu Nianxia was the woman he had never stopped pining for.

Later, he and I both traveled back in time to eight years ago.

He set out to change his first love’s fate of marrying a scumbag.

I set out to change my fate of being with him.

On the day of the grand wedding, every guest in the hall witnessed Ah Ying take a sword strike intended for Gu Yanzhi.

No one knew that the blades, arrows, and poisons she had endured for him throughout her life were already enough to have killed her many times over.

All she had ever waited for was to die in his arms and hear him call her name just once.

Young General Yan was having a spat with the girl who held his heart.

During the night banquet, he had hidden a stem of Evening Magnolia.

He declared that whoever found that flower would become the General’s Wife.

The noble ladies all turned their heads, scanning the room to see where the Evening Magnolia had landed. I remained silent.

I simply used my foot to quietly kick away the flower lying behind my seat.

A moment later, Yan Ci’s nonchalant voice rang out. “I wonder which lady has picked up my flower?”

At the class reunion, my ex-boyfriend held his fiancée close as he announced their wedding date.

I snapped a photo and prepared to send it to his mother with the caption: “They look like a perfect match. Congratulations on finally getting what you wanted.”

Just as I was about to hit send, someone grabbed my wrist in a crushing grip.

“Oh? Still in touch with my mother?” He stared down at me, his expression dark and predatory. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you squeeze enough money out of her the first time?”

The surrounding room fell deathly silent. My face turned pale as I looked up.

I hadn’t even noticed when the music had stopped.

I had become the center of attention.

In the third year of my secret crush on Zhou Jinghe, we got married. A year later, at a ski resort, his close friend and I both found ourselves in danger at the same time. Zhou Jinghe rushed over, shielding that female friend as they tumbled to the ground. As I fell onto the snow, I suddenly felt that everything was utterly meaningless. And when something is meaningless, it should simply be thrown away.

When I was young, I found the Crown Prince and took him with me as we spent three years begging for a living.

After the Crown Prince was restored to his position, the Emperor took me in as his adopted daughter.

Everyone assumed that I would be betrothed to the Crown Prince. Instead, the Crown Prince became engaged to the legitimate daughter of the Duke’s Mansion.

On my birthday, he remarked with a casual smile in front of the crowd, “How can one of noble blood be matched with a beggar?”

I raised my glass and sincerely wished him a life free of worries, year after year.

He did not yet know that I had accepted the decree for a marriage alliance.

In the years to come, there would be no more Ah Yu by his side.