The moment those scholar pricks caught sight of Lin Wanrong's shabby getup, their egos puffed right back up. That smug, self-satisfied vibe flooded back into their pompous asses. They didn't give a damn about his looks—his broke-ass outfit was enough for them to claw back some massive confidence. They started hurling snide remarks like it was a fucking sport.
Before landing in this shithole of a world, Lin Wanrong had been a marketing manager at a mid-sized company. Fresh out of college at twenty-one, he'd busted his ass for four years, climbing to the youngest department head by twenty-five. He'd seen all kinds of clowns in that time—enough to know the game.
Catching the side-eyes from the crowd, Lin Wanrong knew exactly what they were thinking. He smirked to himself—turns out hating the poor and kissing rich ass has a long fucking history. Every era's the same, not just some specialty of my old world.
Young Master Hou's three fancy boats drifted off, and the gawking crowd started to thin out. The chicks next to Lin Wanrong stole a glance at him, faces flushing red before they scampered off.
Lin Wanrong watched the lake settle back into its usual scenery, like nothing had even happened. He couldn't help but chuckle. Back in college, he'd seen guys chase girls a million times—compared to that, Hou's little confession stunt was fucking amateur hour.
A faint nostalgia crept up on him. He thought of his old dorm buddies, his first girlfriend, and the night they split—her eyes all puffy and wrecked with pain.
She'd gone off to the United States, but Lin Wanrong knew she'd been deep into him. She'd begged him a hundred times to go with her—hell, she'd even lined up the visa and tickets. He shot her down cold every time.
At Peking U or Tsinghua, going abroad was the cool shit, but Lin Wanrong wasn't like them. When he graduated, he didn't chase the big corporate gigs—just picked a mid-tier company instead.
He had this weird attachment to home, and he'd dropped a line on her he knew she'd never forget: "I don't want my black eyes seeing a world they think is blue."
When she boarded that plane, Lin Wanrong didn't even show up at the airport. Not because he was heartless—he just didn't know what the fuck to say. It was her choice, not his fault. Everyone's gotta own their shit.
Word was she bawled her eyes out, nearly missed the flight. Lin Wanrong felt a pang of hurt, sure, but there was also this twisted thrill of payback. Who says guys can't be petty as hell?
The next four years, he threw himself into work and chasing tail. Career took off, and he swapped out girlfriends like socks. "I'm not built for sappy love," he'd laugh whenever his buddies asked.
Life was smooth and easy—until that chick showed up at the company. Everything went to shit after that. She strutted in with a VP title, his damn boss, and for some reason, she had it out for him from day one. Never once gave him a decent look.
If it weren't for her dad, Lin Wanrong would've fucked her up—killed her, screwed her, then killed her again, in that order.
Oh, by the way, her dad? The company's fucking chairman.
Just thinking about that little bitch made his teeth grind. If it weren't for her, he wouldn't be stuck in this dump. That moment he slipped off the top of Mount Tai flashed back—her face looked off, like she was hurting. Yeah, real fucking hurt. In a hazy blur, he remembered her grabbing at him, maybe trying to pull him up. Or maybe he'd yanked her, and she'd jumped after him.
Who the hell knows? His head was spinning too hard to tell north from south. Those fuzzy memories weren't worth shit for figuring out what really went down.
Lin Wanrong wasn't buying that she'd jump after him. Him falling off Mount Tai? She was probably popping champagne.
He gnashed his teeth at the thought of her for a bit, then shook it off. What's done is done. Lin Wanrong was a cocky optimist—maybe too cocky—but in this brand-new, fucked-up unknown world, if he didn't strut, who would?
His mind snapped back to the present. Xuanwu Lake glittered under the sun, a stage for all these scholar-and-lady love stories. Jinling's beauty lived up to its rep—秦淮 River's flowers and snow didn't disappoint.
But word was the north was burning with war, and these so-called "talents" and "beauties" didn't give a rat's ass. They just kept up their flirty bullshit all day. Guess that old saying held true: "Wolves in the north, pansies in the south."
He'd been in this place a while now—facts were facts, no changing them. Lin Wanrong started looking at shit like a local, sizing things up with fresh eyes.
"Warm winds intoxicate the tourists, mistaking Hangzhou for Bianzhou," he muttered under his breath. The scene fit the line perfectly. Who wrote it? Didn't matter. Here, anything he recited was his—Lin Wanrong's.
Shamelessness is fucking invincible!
As a marketing manager who'd scrapped it out on the front lines for years, he'd seen every kind of sleazy trick in the book. Compared to those filthy, under-the-table deals, spouting a poem felt pure as a virgin in kindergarten.
Watching another "talent" get invited onto some rich girl's boat for a "chat," then thinking about his own sorry state, Lin Wanrong's gut twisted with resentment. He spat into the lake again, hard and pissed.
Fuck this—drown you horny bastards chasing pussy like it's life or death.
"'Warm winds intoxicate the tourists, mistaking Hangzhou for Bianzhou'—damn, brother, that's a killer line!" A crisp voice piped up behind him, followed by the tap of a fan against a palm, clapping for him.
The voice slowly repeated his poem, dripping with admiration.
Finally, someone with taste. Lin Wanrong grinned, a little smug. Sure, he didn't write the damn thing, but reciting it? That took skill. His old man, a rural elementary school Chinese teacher, had drilled Tang and Song poetry into him as a kid to sharpen his memory. Paid off.
He turned around slow. A drop-dead gorgeous young master stood there, smiling at him.
"Gorgeous" wasn't an exaggeration—this guy earned it.
Slender willow brows, phoenix eyes, lips red as a cherry, eyes like morning stars. He held a white fan, dressed in a pale yellow robe, standing there like a breeze-bent willow—pretty as hell in a way words couldn't touch.
Lin Wanrong hadn't seen Song Yu or Pan An, but he'd bet those legendary pretty boys couldn't hold a candle to this stunner.
He knew he was a good-looking bastard himself—handsome, suave, all that jazz—but he'd only been here a month and still felt like a fish out of water. Plus, this guy reeked of powder and perfume, the type who lounged around rich girls' curtains all day. Totally different vibe from Lin Wanrong's rugged "dark horse prince" style.
So, when it came to pure prettiness, Lin Wanrong couldn't compete. In the month he'd been here, not a single one of these fancy lords or ladies came close to a tenth of this guy's looks.
Next to the gorgeous young master stood a cute little servant boy, just as stupidly good-looking.