The Schemer

Xia Xuan is the kind of "bad woman" people talk about—tall, slim-waisted, strikingly beautiful, and always scheming about how to steal her boss's daughter's boyfriend. The man she has set her sights on is Li Jingliang, a handsome, fabulously wealthy business elite who happens to be engaged to Ye Mingxin, the stepdaughter of the boss who brought Xia Xuan into the industry. Poaching the boss's daughter's man—that takes some nerve. What does she really want? In this game, is she digging a pit for Li Jingliang, or is he waiting for her to fall into one herself? Their first clash takes place on a flight from New York back to Jiangcheng: she watches with a smile as his pen rolls to the edge of her high heels, and thus begins a tug-of-war called "ulterior motives." From then on she approaches him step by step in her glamorous guise, while he seems unmoved on the surface and throws those four words—"ulterior motives"—right back at her. Once she realizes he has seen through everything long ago, and that their goals are anything but pure, the scheming is no longer one-sided. She comes in fierce, bent on revenge—so why does he end up taming her bit by bit? Li Jingliang, what am I supposed to do if I really fall in love with you? This is an early work by Zonggong Daren. Serialized online under the title The Schemer, it was later polished and expanded with exclusive bonus chapters and published in print as Time Never Grows Old, We Never Part. A sweet, satisfying urban romance with powerful-family drama, it features a beautiful, clear-eyed heroine and a cold, brooding hero—a brisk, entertaining read that teases more than it torments.