Betrothed Since Childhood

Blurb 1

The thing Qin Lu hates most is that Song Wanxiao has had her wrapped around her finger since they were little.

Their families live across the hall from each other, and the adults arranged their engagement as a joke. The two of them responded with mutual middle fingers and open disdain, then spent every day fighting like cats and dogs.

Song Wanxiao stole Qin Lu’s last piece of candy, so Qin Lu hid Song Wanxiao’s summer homework. Song Wanxiao put caterpillars in her pencil case, so Qin Lu squeezed an entire tube of mustard into Song Wanxiao’s lunchbox...

But the day a boy from the class next door stopped Qin Lu to confess his feelings, Song Wanxiao charged over with a broom, looking more furious than anyone.

When everyone teased them about their childhood engagement, Qin Lu propped her chin on her hand and looked at her with a smug smile.

Song Wanxiao’s ears turned bright red, but she stubbornly lifted her chin and said, “Dream on, Qin Lu. Like I’d ever marry someone as mean as you.”

Later, Qin Lu’s family suffered a sudden crisis. In a single night, she lost everything. The night before she moved away, Qin Lu sat in the empty living room and stared at her phone for a long, long time. In the end, she typed just one line:

“Song Wanxiao, I’m leaving. You don’t have to marry me now. Aren’t you happy?”

She was gone for four years.

Four years later, Qin Lu returned to the country without telling anyone. But the moment she stepped through the arrival gate, she saw Song Wanxiao.

She was leaning against a pillar by the arrivals exit, a knit top outlining her trim waist. The slender girl Qin Lu remembered had long since grown up, but the look in her eyes was like rain that had been gathering for four years.

Before Qin Lu could run, Song Wanxiao stepped forward and grabbed her wrist. “Miss Qin, you finally decided to come back.”

Blurb 2

After Qin Lu returned, Song Wanxiao never gave her a warm welcome.

Knowing she was in the wrong, Qin Lu carefully tried to make it up to her with a smile. Luckily, Song Wanxiao was just like she’d been as a child: quick to get angry, quick to calm down. Gradually, the two of them were able to talk again.

But time had inevitably driven a wedge between them.

Song Wanxiao was no longer the mischievous girl who used to flip Qin Lu off and chase her around the schoolyard. She wore her hair up, dressed in a suit, and clicked across the floor in high heels, brisk and decisive. Everywhere she went, people called her “President Song.”

Sometimes Qin Lu would sneak a glance at her and feel her heart skip a beat. She no longer dared bring up the words “childhood engagement.”

One day, Qin Lu was entertaining an old classmate on Song Wanxiao’s behalf. As they chatted, the classmate reached out and patted Qin Lu on the shoulder.

Qin Lu smiled and answered, then looked up and saw Song Wanxiao standing in the doorway. She had appeared without Qin Lu noticing.

Leaning against the doorframe, she held a cup of coffee and wore a perfectly practiced smile. But her eyes were cold enough to freeze.

The door shut. Song Wanxiao set her coffee cup on the table with a click so soft it made Qin Lu’s scalp prickle.

“Qin Lu, have you forgotten...” Song Wanxiao took a step closer. “Your place?”

Qin Lu’s heart leaped into her throat, and her mind went blank.

“...What place?”

Song Wanxiao stared at her, leaned in, and kissed her.

“From the day we were little, you’ve always been mine. Did you really think you could get away?”

Theme: Love means standing beside someone when they’re on top of the world, and staying by their side when they fall into the dust.