After working overtime for more than 48 hours, Jiang Wangshu finally gets her wish and quits her job. She begins a work-exchange trip in the south of France.
Under the sun, a Germanic boy swims by the shore, and the sea bursts into a spray of golden flecks.
The boy walks toward her, his eyes clear and bright, like amber.
"Would you like to come pick lemons at my place? We have an orchard, and I can pay you."
"..."
She hadn't expected a slave owner to be so young.
Jiang Wangshu agrees without giving it much thought. After all, nobody turns down money.
-
But after just a week of knowing him, things are moving so fast that Jiang Wangshu senses something is off.
The boy, who looks like a statue, seems fascinated by everything and is always going out of his way to be attentive:
For instance, Camus love poems keep appearing on the napkins after lunch. He finds excuses for physical contact that seem natural, but aren't quite normal. And then there are all those inexplicable invitations.
"Want to go swimming?"
"Gelato or pizza after?"
"Can you come to the market with me? Auntie says she's making a margherita tonight."
Jiang Wangshu puts down her phone, exasperated. "Can you be quiet for a while?"
The boy presses his face to her neck, his breath tickling her. "No."
"You don't actually like me, do you?"
After getting dressed, Jiang Wangshu finally voices the question that's been bothering her for days. "I'm not that casual, and I'm not someone you can flirt with just because you feel like it."
"Then what are you?"
Before Jiang Wangshu can answer, he silences her with a kiss and presses her down.
After that, life feels like a movie, and these worries soon slip from her mind.
They drive convertibles around Sicily, sail along the Mediterranean coast, kiss in front of Milan Cathedral, and the boy crowns her with a wreath of olive blossoms.
Jiang Wangshu thinks that if this is a dream, letting it end here might be the best possible ending.
*
One day after returning to China, she receives a package from overseas.
The scent of dried lemon leaves mixed with basil takes her straight back to that long summer.
A familiar figure approaches, though his pronunciation is strangely clumsy.
"I'm not that casual."
"What about you?"
"…"
* A living-dead heroine x Mediterranean sweetheart.
* The setting is Menton, a lemon town in the south of France. The male lead is of Italian-French descent and doesn't speak Chinese at first, but will learn it later. In the context of flirting, it means making advances. Italians love to flirt. This is the author's personal indulgence, and many details are made up.
* It's very short. Though it's called Long Vacation, it's really short. I'll post as soon as I've saved up enough chapters. A sweet romance under twenty chapters. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Everything serves the romance. Enjoy!
Theme: Love can move heaven and earth.
