The Gardenias Never Fade

[Resilient, beautiful genius girl VS cold, domineering high-martial-arts CEO]

[Mutual devotion + Secret crush + Coercive love + Angsty push and pull + Regretful pursuit]

On a rainy night when I was fourteen, I knocked out the man who tried to assault me with a brick. Covered in blood and shivering by the roadside, I thought my life was over.

Then he came. He gave me a surname: “From today on, your name is Shen Zhi. Shen, like the Shen family.”

I thought he was my salvation. But he would grab my chin and call me a “bastard,” force me to wear white dresses and play the piano, and make me live as someone else. I couldn’t learn. I could never become her.

I cut off the curls he liked and threw away the gardenia bracelet he gave me.

He said I was “starting to go around seducing people,” so I cut off every trace of myself that tried to please him. He said, “What makes you think you deserve to celebrate my birthday?” so I threw the bracelet back at him.

Later, he knelt and said to me, “A Zhi, I regret it.”

But I couldn’t bring myself to believe him anymore. He had hated me, and he had saved me. He pulled me out of the mud, then pushed me back into the shadows with his own hands. I thought I’d never escape. Until I stood up on my own.

After the awards ceremony, I walked through the crowd toward him. “It’s been fifteen years. It wasn’t your fault. It’s time to let yourself go.”

Later, among the flowers in Paris, the wind blew hard. He called my name, his voice softer than the wind. “A Zhi, can I still love you?”

It took me ten years to walk the road that gave those words their weight.