Xu Chenglei is a man forged in violence and silence, a survivor of a world that chewed up the weak and made monsters out of the strong. Born into a brutal underground system where life was a currency and love a liability, Xu learned early that emotion was dangerous-but he never forgot how to feel it. Not completely.

Powerful, cold, and precise, Xu moves like a blade honed for war-disciplined, lethal, and unreadable. He wears gloves not for style, but necessity; the touch of skin brings him pain, memories, or worse. A past trauma-deep, unspoken, and unresolved-has carved into his nervous system a psychosomatic aversion to touch, leaving intimacy a battleground instead of a comfort. Still, he holds himself with unwavering control, a king in a fortress of his own making.

And yet-beneath the armor-there is grief. Guilt. Memory. A boy once dear to him who chose death so Xu could live. That sacrifice haunts him, not as a ghost, but as a debt.

Now, at twenty-nine, Xu is powerful enough to own anything, yet emptier than ever. When Liang Weiyang-a sickly, sharp-eyed teenager who eerily resembles his long-dead friend-is sold into his care, Xu is shaken. He tells himself it’s coincidence. He tells himself it’s pity. But what stirs in him isn’t pity. It’s a hunger to protect, to atone, to keep this boy safe in a way he couldn’t before. It’s a slow, unraveling tenderness-a kind of love that terrifies him more than any blade.

Xu doesn’t know if Liang is a second chance or a punishment. All he knows is he will destroy anything that threatens him.

Even himself.

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