Running away sounded easier in Chen Qingqing’s head than it actually turned out to be.
In reality, it involved sneaking out before dawn, cutting off almost everyone she knew, carrying a suitcase she could barely drag properly, and boarding a train to Cloud City with a fake appearance and a forged sense of confidence. Behind her was the life her family had prepared for her since childhood—a wealthy household filled with rules, pressure, and an engagement she would rather disappear than accept.
So she did disappear.
Most people believed she was some spoiled young miss rebelling for attention. Qingqing almost wished that were true. The truth was messier. Ever since her parents died under suspicious circumstances years ago, she had lived with the uncomfortable feeling that important pieces of the story had been hidden from her. The closer her arranged marriage approached, the more trapped she felt. Escaping to Cloud City wasn’t just rebellion anymore.
It was the first decision she had ever made for herself.
Unfortunately, freedom lasted less than a day before she ran straight into Situ Feng.
Literally.
One moment she was trying to avoid trouble in a dark alley. The next, she was being dragged into a chaotic chase involving strangers she didn’t know, people yelling behind them, and an absurdly handsome guy acting as if the entire disaster was somehow her fault. Their first encounter ended horribly. Their second somehow managed to become worse.
Qingqing quickly decided that Situ Feng was unbearable.
Arrogant. Narcissistic. Reckless.
Also the type of person who smiled during dangerous situations like he genuinely enjoyed them.
Situ Feng, meanwhile, seemed equally annoyed by her existence. Somehow this random girl kept appearing whenever his carefully arranged plans fell apart. Worse, she argued back constantly and refused to be intimidated by him, which only made him pay more attention to her than he probably should have.
Still, something about him felt off.
No ordinary student moved the way Situ Feng did. No normal person attracted the kind of trouble constantly following him through Cloud City. Beneath his lazy attitude and shameless flirting was something sharper—something dangerous enough that even Qingqing started realizing there were parts of his life he deliberately kept hidden.
At the same time, her own investigation into her parents’ deaths began uncovering connections tied to powerful families, buried secrets, and the elite academy she had enrolled into under a false identity. Cloud City slowly stopped feeling like an escape and started feeling like the center of something much larger than she understood.
Then Gu Nan Xi entered the picture.
Gentle, refined, and seemingly perfect in every possible way, he was everything Situ Feng was not. Around him, Qingqing could finally breathe normally again. But the longer she stayed in Cloud City, the more she realized appearances rarely meant much there.
Especially when it came to people.
Some relationships begin quietly.
Others crash into your life like complete disasters before slowly becoming impossible to let go of.
And somewhere between arguments, misunderstandings, jealousy, and moments neither of them were prepared for, Qingqing began realizing the person who disrupted her world the most had also become the one she unconsciously searched for first whenever things started falling apart.
