Pampered and Unruly in His Hands

[Signed for print publication. Follow @Li Wu on Weibo for updates.] Wen Shuyu was doted on by her parents and older brother as she grew up. The most rebellious thing she ever did was fall for a man ten years older than her at sixteen. Everyone in Tingcheng knew him: a young master with an unruly, rakish air. "Her?" When he learned how she felt, he chuckled. "She's still a child." Hurt and humiliated, she went abroad to study in a fit of anger. Six years later, facing a man who had become even better at hiding his emotions, she deliberately called him "Uncle Liang." After the holiday, she returned to the UK, but the man followed her and coaxed her into his arms. He scoffed, "Uncle?" - In a foreign country, she secretly met him again and again, keeping it from her parents and brothers. "Yan Xin," she heard her eldest brother ask him over the phone, "Have you gone abroad again?" The man wrapped his arms around her from behind and replied calmly, "Yeah. Business." After hanging up, he chuckled in her ear. "How much longer do I have to sneak around?" - A promising younger colleague ran off with their daughter, and a longtime friend wooed away their little sister. The Wen parents and her two brothers immediately turned against Liang Yanxin. Meanwhile, the whole social circle spread the news: "Uncle Liang" was robbing the cradle! Liang Yanxin felt no shame. He gave her a seaside estate and showed her off in grand style. Wen Shuyu clung to his back and bit his ear. "You're in your early thirties. Can't you act a little more mature?" The man gave her a wicked smile. "Think I'm old?" She immediately shrank back. "O-old, but still vigorous!" Preview of the upcoming story "A Heart Stirred Afterward": [Ten-year age gap. Neither has an ex, emotionally or physically.] The night she got drunk, Jiang Jiami spent a wonderful night with a mature man who was handsome, chivalrous, and incredibly fit. They parted on good terms afterward, thinking they would never see each other again. The next afternoon, with her back and waist aching, Jiang Jiami went downstairs to meet one of her father's friends. The man in the living room looked strangely familiar. The man who had been anything but gentlemanly last night was now impeccably dressed and every inch the gentleman. "Jiami, this is a friend of your father's," her father said with a smile. "He's also funding a scholarship at your school." "Zhou Xushen." The man extended a hand and smiled faintly, but his gaze held a deeper meaning. "Hello, Jiami." She forced herself to shake his hand, his body heat setting her mind ablaze with all kinds of fantasies. Jiang Jiami thought things with Zhou Xushen should have ended that night, when they were still strangers. But he tempted her until she lost her head, and she secretly met him again and again without telling her father. At a lecture, Zhou Xushen appeared as a guest speaker, leaving a crowd of students swooning. During the break, they gathered around him. Jiang Jiami was pulled forward by her friends. The man turned his head as if by chance, and his smiling gaze found her across the crowd at once. Impeccably dressed in public, he led her backstage, where no one was around. Behind a door that couldn't keep out the cheering crowd, he kissed her until their clothes were disheveled and his tie was loose. One day, Jiang's father sighed, "It seems Xushen has a woman in his life. That's rare. I should meet this sister-in-law sometime." "Sister-in-law?!" Jiang Jiami laughed awkwardly. "Dad, that wouldn't be appropriate..." "Xushen and I are friends despite our age difference. What's wrong with calling her sister-in-law?" But when he turned around, Zhou Xushen calmly smiled and said, "Dad." Jiang's father: "..." Jiang's father: "????" I thought of you as my little brother, and you want to be my son-in-law?! Theme: Savor the beauty of life ;-)