The Narcissus Is About to Rise, and the Carp Is About to Leap

[Complete] After getting pregnant, Nie Ran plans to secretly have the baby and raise him on her own. She'll be just fine by herself.

But someone insists on being a father.

Playboy Mo Xian, the eldest young master of the Mo family, has lately begun to suspect that someone is trying to pin a child on him.

Some poor woman of unknown background seems to be pregnant with his child. Who knows what other schemes she's got up her sleeve?

He tries every trick in the book, from sarcasm and threats to inducements, to make her give up the baby.

She tells him not to flatter himself.

Later... he sees his cousin treating her with great tenderness, and feels a strange pang of displeasure.

In the attic, he accidentally finds a high school photo of the two of them.

And a love letter he wrote himself but never got the chance to give her.

“If we should meet again after many years, how should I greet you?

With silence. With tears.”, Byron, “When We Two Parted”

*Arrogant, sharp-tongued, amnesiac young master x gentle, beautiful, resilient heiress fallen on hard times

*Classic angsty melodrama, reunited after years apart, she runs away while pregnant

*Content warning: The heroine is sexually inexperienced; the hero is not. His promiscuity before meeting her was due to his illness, and he had given up on himself.

*This novel switched to a paid format on 2024-04-30, starting from Chapter 18. Thank you for your support~

Cover by @MintCandy

My next contemporary romance will be A 25-Square-Meter Rental Can't Hold a Love-Hate Saga. Please add it to your collection~

Blurb below:

Many years later, in the banquet hall on the second floor of the Waldorf Hotel, an enormous crystal chandelier shines brilliantly, its dazzling light almost blinding.

Xie Mingyu walks in, her skirt swaying, and immediately spots the man at the center of everyone's attention.

The lover from her past, with whom she had shared hardship but never prosperity.

He has matured. His features are now more defined and unfamiliar. Dressed in a suit, he smiles pleasantly among the guests.

But what she remembers is how young and unsure they were when they first arrived in this city.

The shabby old apartment they shared had a room that was just 25 square meters.

The bathroom and toilet were shared, and in the mornings they had to race against the others to use them.

The fennel buns sold by the old woman downstairs were always unpleasant, as bland as they were unappetizing, but at least they were cheap.

She walked at least 20,000 steps a day working as a shop assistant in the CBD.

No matter how late she finished work, she would see him waiting outside alone, tall and lonely.

All the little patience he had was reserved for her.

The urban village was an ugly scar in the heart of the city's prosperity.

The musty smell clung to her nostrils like a parasite.

Back then, she would hear trains rumbling past the window in the middle of the night like monsters. Lying on the bed, she felt like a fish stranded on shore.

In their 25-square-meter rental, the bed creaked whenever she turned over. At 23, Xie Mingyu gritted her teeth and thought she hated everything about this place.

Except him.

How strange. In the end, she had everything, except him.

“My life had but one glorious summer. After that summer, the moon fell from the sky.

Every summer since, I have tried to paint that moon from memory. I envy its uniqueness, yet love its tenderness.”, Hermann Hesse

*Unfaithful woman x devoted man, rekindling a relationship after a breakup

*Former lovers who struggled together meet again after each has reached the top

Theme: Love gives us strength.