Gentle and Persuasive

Weibo user @QiqiSevenCandies posted a 15,000-word bonus chapter for the secondary couple. At a matchmaking dinner arranged by their elders, Gu Ying came face-to-face with Jiang Xun, the golden boy she'd chased after as a teenager. "Should we introduce ourselves?" The man lounged casually, his tone strictly businesslike. "Or should we skip that?" "Why would we skip it?" Gu Ying looked up. "We're not close." Jiang Xun raised an eyebrow in surprise, then looked back at her with leisurely amusement. Under his unabashed gaze, Gu Ying's raised chin gradually drooped. Her confidence began to fade, and her eyes wandered elsewhere. A quiet laugh came from across the table. "Why are you hiding?" "..." "Feeling guilty?" One night after they got together. Jiang Xun was smoking on the balcony. Gu Ying, a little tipsy, walked over and hugged him from behind. The man calmly stubbed out his cigarette, turned around, and lifted Gu Ying away as she tried to burrow into his arms. "No cuddling just yet." He nodded toward the coffee table, where an old phone lay, holding proof that she'd had her fling and then abandoned him. "Care to explain?" Important note: On Jiang Xun's twenty-seventh birthday, I accidentally wrote twenty-six on the candles on his cake. A reader pointed it out, and I corrected it. Pirated copies probably haven't been fixed, and the story is now being promoted as an older-woman-younger-man romance. I want to make this clear: it is not! They're the same age, and Gu Ying was born later in the year. Also, pirated copies are full of errors, so please support the official release. The neighboring story, Falling Blossoms, is currently being serialized. Blurb: On the night of the graduation banquet, Qian Cheng received a message: [Come to the back door.] Beyond the back door of the KTV was a dimly lit alley. A tall figure leaned at the far end. Qian Cheng smelled a faint trace of alcohol before she even reached him. The young man's cool eyes were veiled in lazy amusement. When she came to a stop in front of him, he bent down until their foreheads touched and lightly tapped her chest. "Can your little heart handle dating me?" Qian Cheng tried to ignore the flutter in her heart and pushed him away. "Do you think our families are so different in status that I'm bound to feel inferior?" She put on a solemn face. "If you're worried about that, it means you never saw us as equals in the first place. I don't see it that way. You're impressive, but I'm not bad either..." Her words were interrupted by a low laugh. Xing Che leaned his head back against the wall, laughing so hard his chest heaved. Qian Cheng frowned. "What's so funny?" "Why so serious?" Xing Che tapped her chest again, his tone teasing. "I was just looking for an excuse to touch you." "Xing Che!!!" Qian Cheng slapped his hand away. "You're so annoying." That night, she believed he was joking. It took many years for Qian Cheng to understand what those words really meant. Theme: If you bring a child into the world but don't raise them, how can you call it a family?