An omega ~22yo. He's a descendant of the Shen Family, some rich high society clan. His parents died when he was young and left him under the care of his uncle, Shen Fu Lin. I think it's implied that SFL had something to do with SY's parents' sudden death, and SY had always wanted to take revenge on him for that. SFL also treats SY like a bargaining chip, wanting to use him to do flesh business with the rich and powerful to claim connections for his own children. Because of his treatment and SY's childhood, SY, who was once outwardly taciturn and straightforward with his feelings, grew up learning to hide his true emotions behind a smile and sweet words. Where I'm at in the novel, I still don't think he's capable of loving anyone in the romantic sense. He seems to love his mother and father unconditionally but can't replicate the depth of such affections with anyone else. The only time I've ever seen him show genuine sadness and guilt towards any of his loves is when he agreed to marry Xu Yi Bai. I think this was because he couldn't bear to hurt him any further after he'd supposedly lost the ability to play the piano following a rough scuffle with SY's ex-boyfriend/affair partner.

Other than the occasional feelings of guilt and pity, Shen Yao's a pretty stone cold scumbag who won't take anyone's love and kindness to heart, only remembering their faults and allowing those to overshadow all the good times. He does everything with a selfish motive. He approached his first boyfriend with the intention of hurting his cousin (cousin had feelings for the boy) and also creating a 'perfect love' that would start an end on a beautiful note. When the relationship took an unsatisfactory route, he steeled his heart and abandoned his first love. With the next one, Shen was emotionally abusive and would eventually cheat on the guy when he refused to let him break things up. Finally, with the last guy, SY approached him with the goal of ruining his life or something after making him dependent on him.

The novel tries to explain his disdain for his alphas by showing how he hated his omega physiology for making him receptive to s*x regardless of his thoughts but idk... it felt kinda silly... I didn't find it very cute at the point in the novel where he shed all pretenses and made his legal husband and lovers fight to 'attend' to him. Those that attempted to express intentions to monopolize him would be shunned and would be punished by not being allowed to sleep with him (wtf?). It reeked too much like Emperors shunning concubines for being jealous and openly favoring love rivals. I'm here for clandestine love affairs and fun love interests (who have good reason to be in love with the MC) not self-disrespecting rich losers 💀

GS was SY's classmate back in high school and became acquainted with him after saving him from being assaulted by a bunch of hooligans. They eventually became friends and fell in love, sparking a deep relationship that lasted the entirety of high school. Sometime in their senior year, GS would overhear SY's cousin accusing him of approaching SY to get back at him. SY never refuted him so GS freaked out. SY felt that their beautiful love story had stretched long enough and decided to break up with him. GS didn't take it well and resorted to begging him to change his mind and drowning his sorrows away at some... bar or club... I'm not sure what it is.

At some point, SY attempts to find him at the bar he frequents but ends up being drugged and r*ped by an unknown alpha whose pheromones smelled of sandalwood (idk why I specified this. just ignore it). He was understandably traumatized and returned home all f*cked up. GS chose this time to break into his house after not hearing from him in a while, only to find him in a state of.. f*cked-outness. He lost his mind and began accusing SY of wanting to leave him because he had something new. He also r*ped SY that day and then dragged him off to his secret apartment (He's some rich kid son of some government official guy. The apartment was supposed to be a graduation gift or sth similar but he stole the key to get access ahead of time.) He then confined SY to the bed and staked his claim over him by imprinting a permanent mating mark (f*ck I forgot it's called), effectively making him like... SY's biological husband (HHH I'M SORRY THIS SOUNDS SO FUNNY!!! it just means that now SY will only be affected by his pheromones. they're not legally married, but they might as well be because now SY can only sexually respond to him and no other alpha). Unbeknownst to him, claiming SY would lead to a decrease in his 'value' at home because now, his uncle can't present him as an expensive commodity and extract maximum use from him, causing him to scorn and treat SY worse. Eventually, GS's father finds out about the situation and has his subordinates subdue GS while they rescue SY. GS's father asks SY to pick between marrying GS and surgically removing the mating mark and SY chooses the latter. GS begs and cries for him to change his mind while forced down but SY doesn't spare him another glance. The incident makes him bitter and disillusioned with SY. Once, he'd held the ambition of becoming a member of some dangerous military force but because of SY, he reconsidered and decided to follow his father's footsteps and remain in the capital because he worried that SY would be bullied without his 'husband' around. After being 'betrayed' by SY and then cruelly tossed aside despite the mating mark, he grew to hate him.

During his time in military school, he once snuck away to see how SY was doing because he couldn't help himself and still held onto hope that SY never forgot him the way he didn't for him. What he saw instead of SY with his new man. After that day, he steeled his resolve and decided to hate SY with every fiber of his being.

After graduating military school, he took up a position as Chief Prosecutor or something (not sure... I not v good at gg translating) and then met SY at a high end party for the elites. He saw SY with a man who wasn't the on he saw him with last time and then took the opportunity to humiliate him when no one was watching. After some back and forth, we learn that he's aiming to force SY back into his arms and at his mercy because even though he 'hates' SY, he still desperately yearns for him and doesn't see why SY should sell himself for power to someone else when he could do the same to him.

Eventually, he sleeps with SY again after finding out that his relationship with the man at the party was a purely transactional one with no physical/s*xual commitments. Right after that, he finds out that SY also has a boyfriend who's in the dark about everything. He loses his mind and then confronts SY and the boyfriend. The boyfriend refuses to acknowlege GS's claims which of course, sets him off. GS hates that the boyfriend has an 'official' identity while he can only be a secret lover who SY will never publically acknowlegde. The confrontation leads to an explosive fight between the alphas and Shen Yao leaving despite his boyfriend still refusing to break up.

From what I can see, GS seems to cling to his identity as SY's first love and former mate, maybe because he might've accepted that no one can win SY's love in the true sense. He's very straightforward and prefers practicality. When he saw that SY seemed to want to use an alpha for his wealth and power, he approached him and offered to provide the same.

When he's first introduced in the novel, he's very aggressive and mean, but we see that his hatred came from a place of deep hurt after pouring his whole heart on someone that didn't want it. It's no excuse for his violence but hehe I'm not the one getting hurt so wow that's hot.

Even with his prickly exterior, we see that he's actually quite stubborn and optimistic. He never gave up on the idea of reuniting with SY despite his father's warnings. He never admitted what his true relationship with SY was to his parents because he'd always hoped that they would one day reconcile and marry, and admitting the SY was a former boyfriend who cheated on him would ofc make his hopes and dreams hard to fly by with his fam.

XYB was SY's university classmate who got close to him through their shared interests in the arts. XYB was a talented pianist who would eventually became a celebrity for field while SY went on to become a professional dancer. They'd been dating for 4 years by the start of the novel. During these years, it's implied that SY would frequently emotionally abuse XYB by stone-walling him when he's away for work and love-bombing him as soon as he returns. I think uhhh he did that to test out XYB's bottom-line and get a good grasp of his personality, which he would conclude to be one of great tolerance and a mild temper.

After SY met the a powerful businessman in his uncle's circle, he made the decision to move on and suddenly dumped his boyfriend through text after a romantic evening and loving goodbye. XYB was greatly affected by news and refusds to accept it. He stubbornly waited for an apology or even just an explanation and never got any. Eventually, he managed to ambush SY and talked/begged him back into continuing the relationship. XYB tried to maintain his facade as a gentle and kind-hearted boyfriend but in reality, his insecurities and suspicions had already begun to fester as he wondered how SY could disregard him after so many years of deep love.

After GS exposed his relationship with SY, XYB played dumb and refused to question his boyfriend in front of a jealous ex. Even after SY acknowledged that what GS said was true, XYB still refused to accept that everything happened voluntarily and got into a fight with GS. Blah blah a bunch of melodramtic BS happens, and at one point, a spat with GS ends up being severe enough for him to injure his hands and damage his nerves.

After SY broke up with his new love, XYB guilted him into marrying him by pretending he could no longer play the piano. He lost his life passion and had to resist the urge to play lest he expose himself and lose what little bit of affection SY had left for him. Eventually, SY figured out the truth and even found plans for him to erase SY's memories and fabricate a new identity for him so that the other couldn't track him down.

XYB is... how to say... a fake white lotus character. He comes across as very gentle and kind and trusting but in reality, he's quite scheming and sinister. GS acts in the open to get SY's attention but will hide his pain and injuries because he can't bear to look unreliable in front of him. On the other hand, XYB will secretly provoke his rivals into acting first so he could look like the aggrieved party and invite pity and affection from SY.

I don't know about the end, but SY never liked him from the start. He only meant to use his power to deter his uncle from acting against him. After he found out YZX was dependent on his pheromones, he became bolder but stumbled on an interesting little secret: YZX was the one who r*ped him that day at the bar when he came to look for GS.

He kept quiet about this and then got engaged to YZX before revealing everything on the day of the event. He also revealed the truth of his 'adultery' to GS, causing GS to have a mental breakdown because he realized that he wrongly accused the person he loved and then subjected him to the same thing his rapist forced on him before ultimately betraying him by stripping him of his freedom.

he just wanted fun to his boring life so he did them bad

guan shu (first love, highschool bully/prosecutor)

xu yibai (old love, university school grass/world class pianist)

yan zhixing (new love, rich thigh/head of yan family)

guan shu originally dreamed of joining the flying eagles (an elite combat military group) but gave it up and became a prosector instead to stay closer to shen yao. He also r*ped, imprisoned, and marked shen yao for life before being discovered and stopped by his family. After fighting to come back to the capital, he 'abandons his moral compass'** and becomes a homewrecker in shen yao and xu yibai's relationship.

**its quite hilarious how the novel places so much emphasis on how 'conflicted' and 'dismayed' he is whenever he 'cant help himself' from being the third party. Like he had none of this internal conflict monologue when he r*ped shen yao repeatedly?? His 'moral compass' is a joke—does it only turn on when it involves his dignity?

so to recap guan shu ruined his career, destroyed his familial relations, and lost his previous upstanding character all to become a dog crawling at shen yao's feet. And honestly your master dont even want you. Like its embarrassing

xu yibai was gentle, kind, amiable, and the perfect boyfriend. So when he gets dumped by shen yao he becomes jealous, deranged, and addicted to self harm?????? He destroyed his precious hands—potentially giving up on piano forever—just to force his family to release him so he could go see shen yao again. Hes also exposed for his plan to erase shen yao's memories and forge a new identity where they were childhood sweethearts. He's jealous, and angry, and getting his heart trampled on all the time do you not ever look back and miss the person you were before?? (And this goes for all the gongs btw. Theyre always presenting their hearts for the whole world to see only to get slapped by shen yao—more on shen yao later)

im the most confused about yan zhixing. Guan shu's first love was shen yao, and they were together for 3 years. Xu yibai's first love was similarly shen yao, and they were together for 4 years. But what does yan zhixing have on shen yao?? An emotionless contractual relationship that lasted maybe 3 months? Yet after his engagement ceremony with shen yao was crashed by guan shu and he got beat half to death he suddenly desires shen yao. He must have shen yao, and even offers up the yan family. Like bro if you were a masochist you coulda just said so. Didnt know getting beat up and nearly losing your legs would make you fall so hard.

honestly I thought I was going to be advocating for justice for the gongs but I really just sh*t on them this entire spoiler.. Mb. But in all seriousness meeting shen yao was probably the worst thing that couldve ever happened to them. What bad luck, those poor blokes

shen yao is sort of a douchebag but its really the only way to stay on top of the scumbags who're obsessed with him. Like the control he has over the gongs are not small but they still squabble like their mental ages are 5 and not 25 (or even older im sure no head of the yan family is in their twenties). Imagine how bad the situation would be if shen yao were to be 'soft, delicate' and the virg*n mary herself. It'd be a shitshow. The only thing im confused about is why he still keeps them around after he's taken back the shen family. It might have something to do with this vague revenge finale thats been mentioned a few times but im not sticking around. Currently the novel has become a playthrough on squabbling children and it doesnt seem to be ending soon. So yeah, im out.

all of them