A Radical Rewrite

This story is entirely fictional!

Rain slanted across the window lattice.

Gong Xue had heard that the novelist she’d secretly loved for years had gone mad after ruining one of his novels.

He wouldn’t answer her calls or reply to her messages, so she hurried over to his home, terrified something had happened.

Rain-soaked plane-tree leaves clung to Gong Xue’s umbrella.

Raindrops fell on her face, cold against her skin.

She clutched her phone, its screen showing her ninety-ninth unread message and a string of unanswered calls.

Downstairs from the novelist’s apartment, the old security guard rubbed his hands and sighed. “That young man hasn’t left his place for three days. Yesterday, I could still hear him smashing things inside. I called out to him, but he didn’t answer. I’m afraid he’s lost his mind.”

At the news, Gong Xue felt as if her heart had been plunged into ice water, the chill spreading to every limb.

The novelist she secretly loved was named Zhou Yan, a literary young man who made a living with nothing but his pen.