ML's father was very abusive and his mom cheated and often yelled at him because he looked like his father. After ML's father died, ML got suspected a lot but he said in his narration that he didn't kill that guy but he wished his father died sooner. ML's mother hanged herself a few years after her husband's death. ML's friend even thought that he could understand why ML was so indifferent towards her death, that friend basically thought that woman is crazy/hysterical.

But ML said, that he didn't hate his mother. She had worked hard enough, and he felt relieved that she's no longer tired

The way he hesitated to be with FL after his friend -who also got the same past like him and made him quite convinced that it's okay to try-, called him while crying then saying he did the thing he hated the most, he also said that ML was right and people like them shouldn't fall in love/ get married. I think the friend became abusive towards his wife and children to the point she asked for a divorce and he promised her that he would never see his children anymore. He told ML that he hoped he could fix his mistakes by taking his family to a holiday but he failed?

Her parents divorced, father got married again with a super annoying woman. She had to be respectful towards them because she respected her grandparents that raised her. She even said that her grandparents love her, but her step siblings are also their grandchildren. Her step sibling could be very rude towards her because even her grandparents hope she would step back

rich guy

his mom committed su*cide, a terrible father.

His coldness to the FL and reluctance to enter a relationship with her is grounded in his past.

He's lived an emotionally abusive life, with a mother who ended her own life and a father who was all wrong.

He doesn't play the pity card, and I like how the author doesn't use his sad past to justify him doing anything cruel or very mean.

He's cold but still respectful to the fl. He doesn't demean her through insults, at most he teases her. After they get together, he treats her very well.

ML is intrigued and doesn't correct MC that he actually owns the bar and was just checking in, but MC is crazy. She keeps trying to push and meet up with him when he keeps declining. She accidentally meets him when out at a company team building exercise. If MC had any brains she would realise that meeting him randomly on a weekend after trying to meet up all week and being rejected looks like she is stalking him. Instead, she looks at MC being instructed to plant trees, and imagines that he is being forced by the older woman directing him. HUH?? MC thinks he is a HOST, a boy who literally is charging the highest fees in the luxury host club. It is rumoured that some of his services cost 30 million rmb. If ML was a host and was being paid by this rich woman to plant trees at her lakeside mansion, he would be MAKING BANK. He would be working hard for that money.

Instead of coming to the natural conclusion that he is really focused on money, she starts to think of this random woman as really mean?

She will bump into ML, (which to ML, looks like she is stalking him), asks to add eachother on weibo, and is rejected a bunch of times. She will ask again at the end of the conversation, she will ask when they part ways for the day, she keep asking until he says yes. Then she messages him on weibo asking to meet up to work out, and he says no, she can swim on her own. So she decides to hand paint some cups for him, and show up at his host workplace and pretend to bump into him, then give him the mugs.

She sees him exit a car with a very rich woman. She sees the ML, who she thinks is going to work at a host club, exit an expensive car driven by a very rich looking woman.

And then she runs away and texts him saying "your girlfriend looks very beautiful, I will stay away". WHAT??!?!?!?

The obvious conclusion should be that he is with a rich client! So, she once again has come to a strange conclusion, completely at odds with what she SHOULD be thinking, if she really thought he was a boy-for-hire.

The woman ends up being a friend who is also a rich girlboss ceo, but even if she was a girlfriend or client: it is crazy pick-me girl, not-like-other-girls, psycho loner behaviour to message him saying "your girlfriend is so pretty, I have no chance. I'll stay away from you now", and then literally run to his location 40 seconds later.

It's like those tiktoks of pick-me boys saying "I'm so ugly, no girl could ever love me.... I SAID no one could ever love me.... What? No, you're just saying that. Unless...."

It's like she is putting on this shoddy display that she is kind or considerate, but really she is just driving ML into a corner.