Launching in January 2027
Resilient, sensitive college girl x gentle, insecure cafe owner
The love between Zhu Yanning and Song Jingye is a fall that was fated to happen.
-
When Zhu Yanning turned twenty, she felt that growing up was one bruise after another, coming without end.
That year, when she could barely take care of herself, another bruise appeared on her body. It didn't hurt or itch. It simply existed, becoming a mark beneath her skin.
In the middle of her twentieth year, she glimpsed a pair of desolate eyes.
Looking into those dry, withered eyes, Zhu Yanning knew he would become another bruise on her body.
-
Amid an endless expanse of white, Song Jingye led Zhu Yanning out of the confused, struggling age of twenty.
"You like me, don't you?" Zhu Yanning asks as Song Jingye rubs medicated oil between his palms and presses it into the bruise on her thigh.
"Am I not allowed to love you?" Song Jingye smiles gently, and the words become another blow stamped onto that bruise.
-
"We shouldn't be like this." Pressed inside a mass of cotton, soft yet suffocating, Zhu Yanning murmurs as she looks into those desolate eyes.
Song Jingye stands a step away, smiling as gently as ever. "You want the freedom to fly away, Yanning. I want you to be free."
-
Song Jingye stands there. His cane has fallen, and the back that was always straight bends as he listens to her footsteps grow fainter and fainter. He thinks: Zhu Yanning longs for freedom, and he wants Zhu Yanning to have everything she wishes for. So he will give her her freedom and send her on her way through mountains and rivers.
But he forgets to ask whether, once she is free, Zhu Yanning would be willing to look back and spare a glance for a desolate life.
-
Song Jingye has a pair of bright, tearful eyes.
Song Jingye has a barren lake, surging beneath a dry surface.
-
Reading Guide:
1. The male lead is blind, and his sight will not recover.
2. Age gap: six years, with the male lead older.
3. Two little bitter gourds who heal each other.
November 23, 2025
Theme: Growing up leaves bruises, and someone will always come along to soothe them.
