Vines and Roses

Childhood sweethearts / reunion after a long separation / four-year age gap A kind, gentle older man with a strong possessive streak × a brave, tough younger woman who can hold her own [The main characters are not related by blood, and there is no romance between them before adulthood] Bai Manwei loved her name. Man from vines, Wei from roses: her older brother had chosen it for her. When she told him, “I miss you,” he never answered aloud. But the next morning, there would be a little gift beside her pillow. That was how she knew her brother had crossed rugged mountain paths for her, returned under the moonlight, then quietly left again. But in the summer she turned eighteen, her brother called her a burden and pushed her away, his mind made up. She hated him, and kept hating him for a long, long time, until one day he gave her a bank card containing all his savings. Until he held her as she sobbed so hard she could barely breathe and said, “You were never a burden. You’ve always been your brother’s precious girl.” Until she discovered that the keepsake conch could not preserve a voice, yet the accusation she made at eighteen still received an unexpected reply. Bonus Scene From childhood on, Bai Manwei had always been under Sheng Tengqing’s watchful eye. But when she was pushed too far, she had a secret weapon of her own. For example: “I’ll make my kid call you Uncle!” Sheng Tengqing’s heart ached. The girl he had raised knew exactly how to hit him where it hurt. But nothing could shake his place as her older brother or her husband. He took her to the bedroom and gave her a proper talking-to, reminding her, “First, we have to have a child.”