Night Rain on the Hillside

Sheng Jiangnan has a girlfriend.

They have been together for two years. Their relationship is steady and they understand each other perfectly. All their friends envy how loving and respectable they are.

Sheng Jiangnan thinks her life has finally settled down.

Until the launch meeting for a new project, when the client’s representative walks through the door.

That familiar face nearly makes her forget how to breathe.

Chen Hengzhi.

The young heiress who used to be her sugar mommy.

She is elegant and aloof, yet every time Sheng Jiangnan thinks she is simply well-mannered, she gently crosses the line:

She shields Sheng Jiangnan from drinks at business dinners, pulls her into her arms in a crowded elevator, books just one room for a business trip because “the budget is limited,” and comforts her after a project fails, even though she is the client...

Sheng Jiangnan is a tangled mess of emotions, but she keeps her composure.

She says quietly, “I’m sorry, Ms. Chen, but my girlfriend and I are very stable. We’re very much in love.”

Chen Hengzhi smiles, her gaze innocent. “You’ve got it wrong. You looked unwell, and that could affect your work.”

But soon, a business trip upends everything.

Sheng Jiangnan sees Yi Zhan kissing her “first love” outside a hotel with her own eyes.

In the corridor on a rainy night, Chen Hengzhi stands nearby beneath an umbrella.

Her voice is gentle, just as it was years ago, like a siren by the sea luring Sheng Jiangnan in: “Aren’t you a germaphobe? Do you still want someone like that?”

·

Sheng Jiangnan thinks she’ll be able to enjoy herself after the breakup,

but the moment she turns around, she finds herself trapped in Chen Hengzhi’s arms.

Years ago, Chen Hengzhi sat beside the sofa, looking down at her, her pale foot resting on Sheng Jiangnan’s shoulder.

“With pressure this light, did they not feed you?”

Back then, it was an order.

This time, she smiles, gentle but dangerous, and lightly touches Sheng Jiangnan’s chin with her fingertips.

“Sheng Jiangnan, I’m clean. Want to find out?”

Reading Guide:

The frosty heiress from Starbucks in Taiyu Province x the cool, aloof canary from Finance McDonald’s

1. The author is fierce and does not accept writing advice. (Typos are fine. Replying “1” means the correction has been made successfully.)

2. They are all bad women, all bad women, all bad women. (Don’t come looking for moral paragons in this story. They don’t exist. Women are meant to keep climbing, using any means necessary to get to the top.)

3. Setting: contemporary Hong Kong City.

4. Women are meant to take turns on top. Don’t be fooled by the names.

Next novel, currently updating: the story of Yuan Ge, Chen Hengzhi’s cousin.

Liang Siyu has been through something she can’t talk about.

Wonu Island, sealed off by a tropical storm.

She meets a woman who is beautiful, aristocratic, and demanding, dressed in a white suit that is wholly unsuited to an island. She can even turn the kitchen upside down trying to cook a pot of congee.

Liang Siyu doesn’t ask the woman’s name, and the woman doesn’t ask where she’s from.

They share a light by the sea wall, run barefoot back to a cabin through the torrential rain, and lean against each other listening to the waves on a night when the power goes out.

Liang Siyu always thinks it was nothing more than a ridiculous dream shared by two people trying to escape reality on a remote island.

Forty-five days later, the storm passes.

Neither of them exchanges contact information.

They both silently agree:

The fire on a deserted island can never reach the other shore.

·

Six months later, in Hong Kong City.

Liang Siyu is admitted to Heyi Hospital with acute appendicitis, where she runs into the woman who was supposed to remain on Wonu Island forever.

The woman is holding a white hospital admission form.

She looks down, sees Liang Siyu’s real name, and calls her by it for the first time: “Liang Siyu?”

Vee’s real name is Yuan Ge.

They had once been so close, yet only now learn each other’s full names. As time passes, everything they shared fades away.

In the end, all that remains is a polite, “Thank you, Ms. Yuan.”

Not long afterward, Liang Siyu attends a reception for the development of an international aviation hub in her capacity as deputy operations supervisor.

The room is full of elegantly dressed guests.

Across the crowd, Liang Siyu sees Yuan Ge again.

The woman is dressed in a black suit, standing in the middle of the room as people continually approach to greet her. Secretaries, socialites, and businesspeople come and go, but the glass of red wine in her hand remains untouched.

Someone whispers in Liang Siyu’s ear, “That’s Yuan Ge, the third young lady of the Yuan family.”

Only then does Liang Siyu finally realize who she got involved with on the island.

She isn’t some rich girl fallen on hard times.

She is a central figure in the Yuan family, exactly the sort of person Liang Siyu was born to despise.

And yet she is also the Vee Liang Siyu kissed until she lost control on that stormy night.

·

Everyone in Hong Kong City knows that the Yuan family’s third young lady is proper, composed, and clearheaded.

No one knows that at the end of an empty corridor, Liang Siyu pins her against the cold wall and asks quietly, “Ms. Yuan, when you kissed me on the island, did you think about the Yuan family’s interests too?”

Yuan Ge looks at her, the corners of her eyes already red, but her voice still strives for composure. “Liang Siyu, that’s not what you called me on the island.”

-

Straightforward Third Miss Yuan x frosty Deputy Supervisor Liang

Reading Guide:

1. Contemporary fictional Hong Kong City. Some occupations, systems, and place names have been fictionalized.

2. A little bittersweet melodrama, an island fling, and a reunion in Hong Kong City. Happy ending.

3. Neither heroine is a moral paragon. Yuan Ge in particular puts her family’s interests first early on, so she isn’t a purely good heroine.

4. Much of the dialogue will be rendered in standard Mandarin. The author does not accept writing advice. Local friends have helped with the Hong Kong City dialect in the story.

5. Women are meant to take turns on top.

Theme: Be faithful in love