Cantonese-Style Plum Juice

[Laid-back fun-loving childhood friend heroine x utterly devoted, gentle Cantonese-tea-style boy-next-door hero]

1. Childhood sweethearts who have never been apart, from the beginning to the end. No newcomer can beat the childhood friend. He’s incredibly gentle, devoted, and doting, and he’s good at acting cute.

2. The dialogue is almost entirely in Cantonese, so you’ll improve your Cantonese as you read. Their love talk is swoon-worthy, and this is definitely a sweet romance. Cantonese songs that fit the scenes also appear throughout, so you can listen as you read and really soak up the atmosphere.

3. They’re both top students, and rare humanities-track top students at that. They’re both exceptionally talented.

The first stage is a coming-of-age campus romance, full of youthful energy and ambition. There’s also the bittersweetness of a secret crush, and the rare twist of the male lead having a crush on the female lead, with diary entries from him.

4. They come from powerful families, and their parents are longtime friends. Their backgrounds span the military, politics, and business, making them a perfect match. This will matter a lot in the second stage, when they enter the adult world.

5. There are no wicked female rivals. The story promotes core socialist values and has a consistently gentle tone. The characters are all people of fine character, and the heroine also reflects on life and offers balanced criticism of certain social phenomena.

My perfect background had already nailed me to the pillar of shame for being absurdly rich, but while I stood there, I wondered:

“How should a person live their life?”

6. The heroine has a strong capacity for empathy and a sense of justice that extends beyond romance… She’s like an ancient tree, supporting others for ten thousand years.

And since the leads are childhood sweethearts, the things couples do seem completely ordinary to the heroine. She doesn’t think much of them, so when the hero secretly engineers a surprise, she just says, “Wow, that was a fun one. I’ll come up with something next time too.”