Rose Lips

New serial: Reunited on a Summer Afternoon Abroad

Gentle, decisive female executive × devoted male doctor

The Mediterranean, a summer afternoon, a white sandy beach.

Yu Shi ran into the person she'd once had a crush on.

By then, through a twist of fate, she'd become the number-three executive at an overseas branch, earning a million a year. He was married. His wife was the daughter of a private orthopedic hospital's director, and he'd inherited his father-in-law's practice.

He called her by name.

Someone asked, “Director Yu, do you know him?”

Yu Shi's eyelid twitched. She felt nothing as she replied coolly, “I've never met him.”

*

Jian Hanfeng had studied abroad and spent years drifting alone.

One summer afternoon, he met his first love on a Mediterranean beach. The real woman far surpassed anything he'd ever imagined.

He watched her face, flushed pink from the seawater, and was overcome with emotion.

His life should have known only two states: childhood and old age. The days when she loved him were the only time he was young.

Blurb:

[Effervescent, lively singer × aloof CEO with a hopelessly romantic streak]

Rekindled romance / Reunited after years apart / Each other's first love / Destined to be together

When Yi Qing first started dating Chai Jun, she had no idea he was the eldest grandson of Wangzhou's richest family. She just thought he was a struggling wage earner like her.

After singing in the plaza, she'd sling her beat-up little guitar over her shoulder and wait for him at an outdoor table by the café.

One day, seeing how exhausted Chai Jun was, she pointed toward the distant Junshan Villa and sighed, “I wish I were the eldest grandson of that rich man. Then I could keep you at home and never let you work so hard.”

Land at Junshan Villa was worth a fortune. When the eldest grandson was born, Wangzhou's richest man had flown to Hong Kong in his private jet to consult a master and choose the site for the estate.

It was a well-known local urban legend.

Whenever Wangzhou locals talked about the Chai family's eldest grandson, they praised him as someone born into wealth and good fortune.

He smiled faintly, put an arm around her shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “Then I wouldn't have met you.”

At the time, she didn't think much of it. She had no idea there was an insurmountable gulf between their backgrounds.

In the end, they broke up, and it ended in heartbreak.

*

They met again four years later.

Yi Qing had imagined their reunion a thousand different ways.

Perhaps Chai Jun would have a wife and daughter by then. They'd meet on an escalator, pass each other, exchange a smile, and leave all their love and resentment behind.

Or perhaps they'd run into each other at an upscale restaurant. He'd offer to pay her bill, and she'd refuse, firmly drawing a line between them.

She had never imagined she'd be standing there with tangled hair, wearing a light-blue cleaner's uniform, looking like someone the world had beaten down.

Chai Jun was still tall, lean, and aloof, with a straight nose and thin lips. His distant bearing made him stand out in a crowd. He'd also made a success of himself and was about to acquire the company she worked for.

Mortified, she immediately tried to run, but Chai Jun caught her wrist from behind and gripped it so tightly he nearly crushed the bone.

His pale lips moved. Amid her panic, Yi Qing made out his words: “Don't leave me!”

Theme: Rekindled romance