Make Me Reach for You

[Coming Soon: Yandai Xiejie, click the author's collection to save it]

[Old-school romance / regret and redemption / melodrama / sweet and angsty] Weibo: @Jinjiang Su Xiaomai

Blurb:

If you stretch the definition, Bai Le could be considered a socialite from the upper class.

But she is the one women of her circle unanimously agree is least suitable to become a daughter-in-law.

Like her birth mother, Ms. Yang, she has a bewitching, foxlike face.

And the wealthy husband Ms. Yang wants her daughter to catch is none other than the eldest son of the Jiang family, who stands at the very top of high society.

-

At their first meeting, Bai Le spoke in a coy, sugary voice. "Mr. Jiang, you've been waiting so long. Why didn't you order a coffee or a cocktail?"

Jiang Wenchao sneered. "Why order a drink? So I can throw it at you?"

At their second meeting, Jiang Wenchao tossed her straight into the swimming pool, his expression full of disgust. "I'm not worried someone might die. I'm worried that if your life falls into my hands, it'll feel dirty."

-

He treated her like a worn-out broom, and she thought of him as rotten stuffing.

Bai Le saw through his haughty attitude. After earning enough money, she left home to live on her own and casually tossed aside the ring he'd given her.

"Even if you're a young master of the Jiang family, in my eyes, Jiang Wenchao, you're nothing but a spoiled meat bun.

The kind even a dog wouldn't touch."

The ring splashed into the water. Jiang Wenchao jumped into the fountain without hesitation and clutched the expensive rose-colored diamond ring he'd specially commissioned. His brows and eyes were wet, and his voice was hoarse.

"Lele, it's fine if you don't want to marry me right now. Just don't break up with me yet... Can you?"

1. This is a story about love and pretending to love.

2. The heroine's initial devotion was only because her family forced her. She never loved the hero.

3. Jiang the Dog really is a dog, but later he really does spoil her.

Blurb for Yandai Xiejie:

Song Mei deliberately avoided looking at the swaying camel bells, because she could still remember the day Qi Yan bound her hands together and pinned her between the camel's humps without saying a word the entire time.

There was no water. They were both parched. Her fingernails dug into his muscles, and he still held her high heels in his hand.

With a faint flush at the corners of her eyes, she looked out over the boundless desert. The sun wavered, and countless eerie mirages shimmered on the horizon.

"Where are we?" Her throat was unbearably hoarse.

Qi Yan gripped her wrist, pulled out a cigarette, and tossed it onto the sand. "Yandai Xiejie."

But that clearly wasn't true.

Song Mei opened her mouth, feeling as if her throat were about to crack. All she could do was cling to Qi Yan's shoulder, unable to tell whose sweat was on her.

This man had thrown away her cigarette and given her half a lifetime's worth of life.

"So we're heading there. When we get there, we'll go our separate ways."

[Recommended: A story by Xianxian, The Little Princess Huaile, by Yan Shi Chen Xian]

Princess Huaile was born innocent and was a little stutterer who stumbled over her words.

Fu Chen was treated like a disposable pawn and sent to Liang as a hostage. Bullied and schemed against at every turn, he became Princess Huaile's first man.

The little stutterer thought she had taken advantage of Fu Chen and felt guilty, so she treated him with all the tenderness in her heart.

She gave him the meager food left after others had withheld his share, and gave him her winter quilt. When Fu Chen was beaten, she threw herself around him to shield him from harm.

She always thought that if she treated Brother Chen a little better, then when he was happy, he would call her by name in his dreams, just as he called Third Sister...

Fu Chen accepted her kindness, but never appreciated it.

He was always cold to her, and acted as if she weren't there.

The little stutterer could barely speak, and she was so foolish. She knew nothing about what happened in bed. How could she understand his feelings?

Later, Fu Chen escaped Liang and marched on the capital with his troops. On the night he was finally about to marry the Third Princess as he had always wished...

A palace servant sweeping the snow came stumbling over, shouting that Princess Huaile was dead.

She had died on a winter night when no one cared, clutching a dingy gray tassel for protection.

That was... the thing Fu Chen had torn off and thrown away.

Fu Chen felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. He refused to believe it. How could she be dead? That little stutterer was the toughest person he knew, always following behind him no matter how much he insulted or drove her away.

Fu Chen ran to her like a madman.

Faster. If only he could run a little faster, he could make it back to the little stutterer's side.

Tears blurred his vision. He lost his footing and tumbled down the long steps, his face stricken with grief, his heart breaking, his whole being a wreck.

"She's dead. She's dead..."

The little tagalong who had always followed him was dead.

No one would ever spend another winter with him. No one would ever hold him through the endless nights and tell him, "Brother Chen, don't be afraid. When spring comes, everything will be all right."

It turned out that, somewhere in the years I never noticed, I had secretly fallen in love with you.

P.S.:

-

The heroine fakes her death, and her stutter will be cured.

The hero has never been with anyone else. He has to win her back after hurting her. (Another melodramatic, old-school story about a jerk who hurts the heroine and then has to learn to love her properly.)

Theme: Cherish life and learn to say no.