Falling for You in the Evening Breeze

She approached him when she had nowhere else to turn, offering a deal. He took her in knowing the truth, resigned to accepting it.

When Wen Yao first showed up at Lu Zeyan's office with a thermos of porridge, he coldly told her, “Don't come back tomorrow.” But the next day, he accepted the porridge. By the third week, he'd uncovered every reason she'd approached him: her debts, their deal, and the 200,000 a month he'd agreed to pay. He didn't expose her. He just kept accepting her breakfasts, complained that she was a nuisance, and secretly paid off her first debt.

A clear-headed, quietly resilient girl with nowhere left to turn, and a proud, aloof man who hides his feelings to the core. From the start, everything was built on lies, yet somehow they both fell for each other. But every secret is eventually torn open. He took a step back in front of everyone. When her mother was critically ill, her message showed as “read,” but he never came.

Wen Yao didn't cry, make a scene, or cling to him. Late one night, she dragged her suitcase and a potted pothos onto a southbound train, vanishing without a trace into a small county town.

Lu Zeyan went mad. He cast aside all his pride and chased after her, learning to humble himself, to speak his heart, and to leave a bouquet at her door every morning. From an untouchable figure to awkwardly sincere, from “You should comfort me” to “I'll come every day,” he stood in the early winter sunlight and told her, “I don't want someone better.”

The first half is sweet enough to make you pound the table; the second is heartbreaking enough to bring tears to your eyes. The ending delivers the ultimate push and pull: a proud man chasing his wife across a thousand miles, and a broken relationship made whole again. After they shatter, they pick up the pieces one by one and put themselves back together in a better way.

If the evening breeze was only borrowed, then let's start counting the seasons it carried us through all over again.