Coming from the mountains to attend high school in the big city, Lin Xi's heavy accent, her clothes washed pale with wear, and the carefully portioned meals she never dares to fill to the brim all give away her background.
Lin Xi doesn't care.
Because she has farther places to go.
There's only one secret she doesn't want to reveal, and absolutely must not.
She has secretly fallen for the older brother of her best friend, Shen Tingjing.
At the two most despairing moments of her life, two people came to her rescue.
One of them was Shen Tingchuan.
The feelings of a young girl, buried beneath the crushing pressures of life, briefly surfaced in that moment. Holding on to a faint hope, she looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes and asked:
"Why are you so good to me?"
Still bearing the injuries he'd suffered saving her, the boy smiled and reached out to pat her head. "You're my little sister's best friend. My mom is practically ready to adopt you as her goddaughter. Of course I should be good to you."
And so those girlish feelings were buried even deeper. Lin Xi followed Shen Tingjing's lead and started calling him "big brother" too, not daring to entertain even the slightest improper thought.
After graduating from high school, Lin Xi went to university and found work in a faraway northern city, leaving her old life behind and keeping her distance from Shen Tingchuan. Even when she went back to see Shen Tingjing, she deliberately avoided the times he would be home.
She had finally made it out of those mountains and seen the dawn of a new life. Even if she couldn't let go of those faint girlish feelings from long ago, she couldn't speak of them either. She ought to be content.
But Lin Xi never expected to run into Shen Tingchuan again by chance. Even less did she expect that the feelings buried deep in her heart, which she thought would only ever rot there, might one day see the light and bloom into the most brilliant flowers.
Late at night.
The handsome man, sweat beading thickly along his brow and jaw, smiled and reached out to cover her mouth.
"Don't call me big brother right now. It makes me feel... kind of guilty."
- Campus and city life, with a two-year age gap
- The title and blurb may change
Theme: Break free from the bonds of fate
