The Obsessed Crown Prince Has His Eye on Her, and Her Older Childhood Friend Goes Wild

In the old lanes south of the city in 1999, nine-year-old Lin Shu'an brought home a limping stray dog and named him General. She also took in Qiao Yanchuan, the quiet boy who was always being bullied and who lived behind her. She was a sunflower in summer, trading candied hawthorn skewers for his secrets and helping him build a “space headquarters” in an abandoned water tank. Together they drew a promise of a Milky Way with two stars. He was a silent shadow, remembering the bell on her red cord, hiding her embarrassment when she got her first period, and climbing the drainpipe on stormy nights to listen to the radio with her.

But in the summer they turned eighteen, there was a corner missing from their graduation photo. Qiao Yanchuan left behind an Oxford Dictionary. On page 46, he had written, “When I grow up, I’ll come back and marry you.” Then he turned and disappeared through airport security. Lin Shu'an crossed out the promise in black ink, believing their childhood universe had been crushed by bulldozers along with the sunflower field.

Ten years later, they meet again. He is the ruthless “Demon King Qiao,” feared throughout the business world, yet he still harbors the tenderness he felt for her as a boy. She is an ordinary employee, worn down by life, and when he approaches, she is both wary and unable to resist that familiar glimmer of light. The sunflower specimen from the water tank is still there, and the gap in their Milky Way is waiting to be filled. It turns out some promises were tucked away by a boy in time on a cicada-filled afternoon in 1999, left to wait half a lifetime to be fulfilled.