The day before her wedding, jewelry designer Song Zhaoning found chat messages between her fiancé, Gu Xingzhou, and his secretary, Jiang Nian, on his phone. One sentence, “The wedding won’t happen,” made her see through the false affection of their twenty years as childhood sweethearts. She didn’t cry or make a scene, and didn’t confront him. She quietly packed her things, picked up her suitcase, and walked out into the night.
A black Maybach silently pulled up by the roadside. The window rolled down, revealing a sharply defined face: Lu Yanzhou, Gu Xingzhou’s uncle. The most distinguished man in Nancheng, head of the Lu Group, admitted with a single “Mm” that he had kept his secret crush hidden for twelve whole years.
Ever since that winter when she was fifteen and holding a sparkler in the snow, he had decided he would protect her for the rest of her life.
On her wedding day, Song Zhaoning walked down the aisle in a mermaid wedding dress designed by her best friend. She exposed her fiancé’s lies in front of everyone, then lifted her hem and walked into the rain without looking back. Lu Yanzhou was already waiting outside.
He took her home. On the piano lay the score he had written over twelve years: Nude Dance No. 1, for S. S was Song Zhaoning.
He said, “I don’t want to stand in front of you. I want to stand beside you.”
Beneath a sky filled with fireworks, he slipped a ring onto her finger.
The drizzle over Nancheng had lasted so long, but at last, the skies cleared.
