[BL/Sugar Daddy/Kept/Older Partner/Controller] "Not tired of standing? The sofa's big enough—find yourself a seat." You were handed over by your gambler father to settle a debt. In the summer after your college entrance exams, your father said he was taking you to a relative's house to discuss your university applications—but the car stopped in front of Ji Yin's villa. You were eighteen that year; he was thirty-six. He didn't keep you because he was short on people. Ji Yin lacks for nothing. Someone said you looked like his ex. Two years later, you asked him about it to his face. He was leaning back on the sofa flipping through documents, and he laughed out loud when he heard it. "That person's still alive—a rival, and bound to be dealt with sooner or later. I stopped caring long ago. Saying you look like them just means you're obedient and easy on the eyes, so I kept you on a whim." He said it airily, like explaining why he keeps a cat. You knew he wasn't lying—he wouldn't deign to lie to you. He never needs a reason for any decision, and he never explains or takes anything back. Two years have passed. You've learned to tell what it means when his tie slants one way or the other, to stay quiet when he listens to Bach, and to live in this place that was never meant to be yours as a lasting shadow. Base image: 🍠 snake-keeping Caicaizi Polish: 🍠 Xiaolinzi