Chapter 1 — Ha Ha, You're All I Want

Upon discovering that her online dating partner was confined to a wheelchair, my roommate let out a palpable sigh of relief right on the spot. She turned to me, her face illuminated by an expression of triumphant celebration, and said, “Thank goodness I’ve always used your pictures to chat with him.”

“My precious sweetheart, would you be a dear and go break the news to him for me?”

I froze, dumbfounded. “On what grounds should I do that?”

She blinked innocently, batting her eyelashes. “On the grounds that the face he fell in love with online belongs to you, of course.”

“You certainly don’t want to end up tied to a crippled man, do you?”

I was just about to open my mouth and issue a stern refusal when a flurry of translucent text streams suddenly flashed across my vision—a barrage of live comments, or danmu.

【Lmao, the great Beijing tycoon was already deeply insecure about his legs. It took his younger brother’s relentless encouragement for him to finally give online dating a try, and now one single moment of stepping out of his comfort zone has sentenced him to a lifetime of extreme introversion!】

【Our foolish little female lead is so clumsy! Even though the male lead is disabled, he is the absolute gold standard for “service-oriented” partners; he’ll spend every penny he has pampering his wife, and funnel every ounce of his physical strength into taking care of her!】

【Rest easy, our precious little girl is going to be exceptionally well-fed in the future. This brooding, shadowy type of male lead is scarily clingy once he gets attached; his biggest fear in life is his wife running away from him.】

【The only one I pity is that gorgeous second female lead. Because she turns him down at the very beginning of the story, it makes him withdraw even further into his shell, driving his furious younger brother insane enough to toss her straight into the open ocean to be fed to the sharks!】

My footsteps instantly ground to a halt, and the rejection that had been hovering right on the tip of my tongue made a sharp three-sixty turn, transforming effortlessly into a cheerful little melody: “Say hi i ya i ya~~”

01

My roommate, Bai Yingying, simply dropped her parting words and fled the scene posthaste, leaving me stranded entirely alone in the middle of the cafe.

The man sitting in the wheelchair over in the distant corner had his gaze fixed on our direction; the fervent, eager warmth that had previously filled his eyes had now congealed into something icy and indifferent. And quite frankly, who could blame him? Bai Yingying and I had spent so much time dragging our feet and arguing right by the entrance that anyone with eyes could tell we were harboring intentions of rejection.

My phone chimed with a crisp notification ping. I unlocked the screen to find a message from Bai Yingying containing the login credentials for her secondary WeChat account.

“I’m leaving this alternate profile in your hands. If you don’t have the guts to say it to his face, just send him a text message to break things off.”

The scrolling barrage of comments flared up before my eyes once again.

【Our precious baby is so thoughtful! Knowing the second female lead would be too embarrassed to speak up, she handed over the login details directly.】

【Fat lot of good sending it will do; the male lead is bound to get rejected at the start of the story anyway, and when he goes home even gloomier than before, his brother—who suffers from a severe case of elder-brother obsession—is definitely going to pin all the blame on the second female lead.】

【Well, when you put it like that, the second female lead really is an innocent bystander struck by a stray arrow.】

【What is the floor above me even babbling about? Romance has always been a two-way street; what’s wrong with our baby girl initially struggling to accept someone with a disability?】

【Besides, it was the second female lead herself who agreed to help deceive the male lead in the first place. Nobody put a gun to her head.】

【OMG, the commenter above me is giving me the creeps~ Did you even bring a brain when you started reading this novel? Stop blindly following these brainless, sugary tropes! If the female lead hadn’t stolen the second female lead’s photos to catfish someone, would we ever have reached this point where the second female lead is forced to do the dirty work of breaking up?】

【Wuwuwu, is it really a crime for our precious baby to feel insecure? If the second female lead’s face wasn’t so ridiculously gorgeous, our baby wouldn’t have bothered using it in the first place. If you want to blame someone, blame the second female lead for not being the actual heroine!】

…The danmu exploded into a chaotic shouting match, hurtling wildly across my field of vision.

Not far away, the expression on the man’s face grew even more desolate. He lowered his gaze, his slender, fragile back desperately trying to keep itself rigid, as if he were trying to preserve the very last shreds of his pride. Sensing my approach, the hand gripping the armrest of his wheelchair tightened visibly, his knuckles turning white.

It was only then that I got a truly clear look at the man’s features, and my breath hitched in my throat.

His eyes were as dark and glossy as a raven’s feathers, his nose high and straight. Though his skin possessed a somewhat pale, sickly hue from a clear lack of sunlight, his entire being radiated a dangerously sharp, breathtaking beauty.

My gaze couldn't help but slide downward. Beneath a flawlessly tailored, well-fitted dress shirt was a spine as straight as a ramrod and a lean, powerfully sculpted waistline. Slipping just a bit lower…

Enough, Lin Jianxia!

I hurriedly stamped out the chaotic, wildly inappropriate train of thoughts barreling through my mind, endlessly reminding myself that the man sitting across from me was still confined to a wheelchair. A person simply had to have a conscience!

Yet, the very next second, recalling the phrase “gold standard for service-oriented partners” flashing in the danmu, I cast one more lingering glance at the wheelchair and pressed my lips tightly together.

Good heavens above, who on earth could possibly endure temptation like this?

I felt strongly that Bai Yingying ought to take some time out of her schedule to get her eyes checked; to pass up on a magnificent delicacy like this meant she thoroughly deserved to miss out.

It was the man across from me who finally broke the silence, clearly having already anticipated how this meeting would end. He offered a self-deprecating, bitter chuckle.

“I’m sorry, Jianxia. My health condition must be a massive disappointment to you. If you want to call things off… it’s entirely alright.”

The danmu began streaming once more.

【Wuwuwu, the male lead is so pitiful. When will he finally be reunited with our precious baby? With our baby’s love, he won’t ever have to feel lonely again.】

【Sigh, once the second female lead turns the male lead down today, is her character arc effectively over?】

【Probably. As soon as the male lead gets home, his younger brother is going to sense something is amiss and all hell is going to break loose.】

Amidst a sea of lamentations and sympathetic mourning, I managed to snatch up a crucial piece of critical information. Terrified out of my wits, I took a massive stride forward, reached out, and firmly grasped the man’s slightly chilled fingers.

“Hi~ My name is Lin Jianxia. We’ve been talking for so long, but I still don’t actually know your name.”

“Would you mind telling me your name, my darling?”

02

The man sitting opposite me instantly froze in shock.

I initially thought he was merely feeling shy, but to my surprise, he narrowed his eyes slightly, and the surrounding atmosphere abruptly plummeted to freezing temperatures. His lips parted, and the words that tumbled out struck me like a bolt of lightning.

“My darling? You told me before that you had deep reservations about the word ‘darling,’ which is why you’ve never once called me that.”

Oh, sweet merciful heavens! Who on earth could have guessed that these two had never called each other “darling”? What kind of couple in a relationship never uses endearments? Even a certified, lifelong single like me—who hadn’t so much as held hands for over two decades—knew that romance required calling each other pet names!

I was still holding onto the male lead’s hand, feeling so utterly mortified that I desperately wanted to claw a hole in the ground and crawl straight into it. “Using pet names just makes things feel so much more intimate, doesn’t it?”

He offered a slight frown. “You also said previously that you dislike excessive intimacy, because it feels like a violation of personal boundaries.”

Aish, damn it all! Bai Yingying, you absolute harbinger of misfortune, why did you have to have reservations about every single damn thing under the sun?!

I was genuinely speechless. The danmu erupted into absolute pandemonium.

【Hahahaha, I’m dying of laughter! This second female lead just lifted a rock only to drop it right on her own feet. No matter how many times she gets rejected, the male lead only has eyes for our precious baby. Just give up already!】

【Exactly! Every single word our precious baby ever uttered has been carefully carved into the male lead’s memory.】

【Sigh, even though it feels profoundly unfair, playing this game as the second female lead is basically set to Hell Mode. How could she possibly know what the original heroine and the male lead texted each other about? Saying just one wrong sentence is like stepping straight onto a landmine.】

【Wouldn’t getting caught by the male lead for being a catfish be a much quicker way to die?】

【Probably. After all, the male lead’s younger brother is an obsessive maniac, and the male lead himself turns out to be an extreme, brooding yandere later on…】

I felt completely and utterly hopeless. My entire body deflated like a punctured balloon.

Well, screw it. At this point, I might as well throw caution to the wind and plunge headfirst into the abyss. If I was going to die, I’d rather get it over with quickly, which would also make it convenient for me to head straight up to the heavens and meet my long-lost parents.

“Xu Dongcang.”

I hadn’t quite caught it clearly, and out of sheer reflex, my eyes snapped open as I asked, “Pardon?”

“Lin Jianxia, hello. My name is Xu Dongcang.”

The fingers I was currently holding carefully, deliberately turned the tables, wrapping themselves securely around my hand. As if he were terrified that using even a fraction too much force might startle me and cause me to run away.