Those Things Between My Aunt and Me

At 22, Chen Yu is a senior in college, living alone in the old two-bedroom apartment his mother left behind. His mother has been dead for years, and his father all but disappeared after remarrying. He had long since grown used to living by himself, until his aunt Shen Shiyu showed up at his door with a suitcase.

Shen Shiyu is his mother's younger sister, six years older than him at 28. In Chen Yu's memory, she is the family's odd one out: she left home ten years ago and never came back, never did things by the book, and lived boldly and freely. She is almost impossibly beautiful, the corners of her eyes lifting when she smiles as though they hold a come-on. She never explains what she does, yet somehow always has her reasons.