Name: Stealing a Taste of Lychee
Author: Ai Yu

Synopsis

[Next up: Selling Romance and Going Back to Age 17 to Go to School with My Daughter. Please add them to your to-read list! The story about the male lead's older brother, Xie Jingchen, Lemon Sweet, is complete and ready to read.]

1. Seven years later, when they meet again, Li Zhi has become Gu Jingchen's private secretary.

The senior who had been inseparable from her in high school now stands before her in a perfectly tailored suit. He regards her with a cool, unfamiliar gaze and asks, "Name?"

To ease the tension between them, Li Zhi starts bringing Gu Jingchen his favorite fruit, lychees.

She peels them herself and places them on his desk.

But Gu Jingchen remains completely unmoved by her overtures and pays them no attention at all.

At last, one day, he asks casually, "What, are you trying to win me over?"

Afraid that bringing him any more would lead him to get the wrong idea, Li Zhi comes to the office empty-handed the next day.

To her surprise, Gu Jingchen blocks her in his office and demands, displeased, "Where are the lychees?"

Li Zhi looks bewildered. "I'm right here."

Gu Jingchen freezes, then presses his tongue to his teeth and gives a mocking laugh. "You're reading way too much into this."

Li Zhi: *facepalm*

2. When Li Zhi was sixteen, she transferred to the high school Gu Jingchen attended.

Before the school year began, their families got together for dinner, and Li Zhi met the unruly Gu Jingchen for the first time.

She sweetly called him "Second Brother Gu," but all she got in return was his scornful, scoffing laugh.

Their parents told Gu Jingchen to look after the gentle, soft-spoken Li Zhi at school. He agreed to do so in his usual careless manner.

No one saw what happened when the two of them were left alone in the living room that day.

Gu Jingchen gave her a wicked smile and threatened, "Don't think calling me big brother means I'll protect you."

After school started, Gu Jingchen was the only person in the whole school who picked on Li Zhi every day.

Wary and afraid of him, Li Zhi avoided him whenever she could.

Then one day, Gu Jingchen deliberately cornered her in a secluded spot.

Seeing her so frightened she was almost in tears, he licked his dry lips, then coaxed her in a low voice, "Call me Second Brother, and I'll let you go."

[Bonus scene:]

On the night Gu Jingchen got drunk, Li Zhi peeled lychees for him to eat. He snapped at her, "You think I care about lychees you peeled for me?"

Li Zhi earnestly explained in her soft voice, "Everyone says you like lychees..."

Gu Jingchen was so exasperated he blurted out, "That's not what I like! I like you!"

Present-day pairing: Sweet, adorable secretary x tsundere, scheming CEO

· Mutual pining and a reunion after years apart

· Everyday romance, not a workplace novel, with nostalgic high school flashbacks

Next up: Going Back to Age 17 to Go to School with My Daughter. Please add it to your to-read list! Blurb below:

Back then, Shi Yan's fiance, Lin Yan, kicked the bucket before they could get married. Shi Yan had just discovered she was pregnant.

Eighteen years later, the single mother Shi Yan gets into a car accident and somehow returns to the age her daughter, Shi Zhouzhou, is now.

She thinks back to the strange signs she'd noticed before the accident:

Her once sweet and cheerful top-student daughter had recently started getting much worse grades. She had grown increasingly quiet, and had even started coming home late or not coming home at all...

Shi Yan decides to disguise herself and get close to her daughter to find out what's going on.

She discovers that the precious girl she has cherished is being ostracized and bullied at school.

Shi Yan: Baby, don't be scared! Mom's here to protect you!

Just as Shi Yan finishes tearing into the two-faced bully on Zhouzhou's behalf and is about to teach the bully's lovesick boy followers a lesson, a tall, handsome boy suddenly appears and shields her and Zhouzhou.

He turns his face slightly and says to the mother and daughter in a clear, warm voice, "Stay back. I'll handle this."

Shi Zhouzhou is dumbfounded. "W-who are you?"

Shi Yan is shocked. "What the heck?! Why does this boy look so much like that jerk who got me pregnant and then died back then?!"

· A story centered on family bonds and standing against school bullying

· The family of three: a brawny, top-in-the-classroom's-opposite mama with off-the-charts fighting skills x a top student and human bodyguard machine of a dad x a sweet daughter adored and protected by her parents

Next up: the contemporary romance Selling Romance. Please add it to your to-read list! Blurb below:

When Lu Ran was eighteen, she fell for a man for the first time.

He was nine years older than her and served as the commander of a special operations unit in the Shencheng Army. He was the youngest son of her grandfather's old comrade-in-arms, and his name was Lin Youqi.

Handsome and roguish, he was fiercely unruly. His phoenix eyes turned up at the corners, and whenever he glanced her way, he seemed to be smiling as if he were flirting with her.

Lu Ran heard that he was still single, so she worked up the courage to confess her feelings.

All she got was a nonchalant reply: "How old are you? I'm not interested in kids."

Lin Youqi didn't think he liked the young Lu Ran.

That is, until one time when he came home on leave and heard Lu Ran asking her grandfather to set her up with a soldier for a blind date.

Lin Youqi immediately panicked. "What blind date? You're still so young!"

Lu Ran looked innocent. "I just want to date a handsome soldier."

Lin Youqi gave a mocking laugh. "Fine, you like soldiers, huh? I'll set you up."

One day, Lu Ran went to meet the man Lin Youqi had arranged for her, only to discover that the date was Lin Youqi himself.

Lu Ran: "I thought you said you'd set me up with a soldier?"

Lin Youqi asked coldly, "What's wrong with me?"

Lu Ran blinked and replied with mock seriousness, "You're not really suitable. How old are you, anyway? I'm not interested in old men."

Lin Youqi: "...":)