Keeping a Secret Summer

[Complete] Thank you to everyone who supported the official release! - Upcoming novels: She Is the Cutest and Old Dreams. See the blurbs at the very end. Please add them to your reading list! -Weibo: @OrangeOrangeDuck, please follow! "Midsummer fireworks and evening breezes at sunset still can't compare to the way you look into my eyes." The day Ruan Tang first met Cheng Xiao, rain poured in torrents. Passersby hurried along the road. A sharp-eyed boy leaned beneath the eaves of an alley, watching the rain, a glowing red stub between his fingers. Hearing footsteps at the alley entrance, he looked up. A fierce glint still lingered in his eyes, left over from a fight. Ruan Tang looked into those eyes and suddenly gripped her umbrella tighter, lowering her gaze in alarm. She hurried along the wall, silently reciting a prayer... Go, go, go. He looks so scary. The alley was narrow. A passerby rushing by without an umbrella bumped into her, making her stumble and nearly fall. But she didn't dare stop. She staggered away under her umbrella. As she left, she thought she heard a faint laugh behind her. Cheng Xiao watched the petite figure dart out of the alley, her two long braids swaying as she ran. She looked like a little lamb that had just been startled. Yeah, a little lamb. The kind with braided hair. 2 Ruan Tang never expected to see the fierce boy from the rainy alley again. This time, he was sitting behind her... From then on, she was so careful that she wouldn't even lean her chair back toward his desk, not even a little. Watching the girl act as though she wanted to keep eight hundred feet away from him, Cheng Xiao spun his pen between his fingers and smiled for no apparent reason. Until one day, he saw her asking the class representative, who had scored full marks in math, for help with a problem. She was earnest and gentle, her eyes fixed intently on the person she was talking to. Cheng Xiao lowered his eyes, pressed his lips into a straight line, and crushed the soda can in his hand. One winter evening, on snow-covered steps, the boy trapped the girl in his arms, shielding her from the biting wind. In the space between their breaths, he could clearly smell her sweet, soft scent. Cheng Xiao's voice was low and hoarse as his fingertips brushed her cheek. "From now on, don't ask anyone else about math. Ask me instead, okay?" The girl blinked and answered softly, "But you haven't even passed math..." 3 One day, Class Three's homeroom teacher held up a perfect-score exam paper that had appeared out of nowhere and burst into tears. "Cheng Xiao, what on earth made you change your ways?" Cheng Xiao: "Nothing. I just hope that one day I'll be able to tutor my classmates." Homeroom teacher: ? Cheng Xiao lowered his eyes to the red string around his wrist. A perfect score was all. He could get one too. "If you like it, I can do it too." *A sweet, well-behaved, imaginative bookworm × a cool, aloof, handsome delinquent, a failing student forced to love studying School romance / Love at first sight / Not much saving each other / Both are each other's first Their feelings only become clear after graduation. The high school portion is mainly the story of the failing male lead's tearful transformation. (Cheng is genuinely not interested in studying, but he genuinely wants to learn.) ★ Upcoming novel: She Is the Cutest On the day the senior class took their graduation photos, Cen Ning skipped class for the first time, lying to her teacher. Sitting on the infirmary bed, she stared out through an old, slightly cloudy window. The blazing sun gilded the tall, handsome boy with a golden glow. He stood in the back row with one hand in his pocket, talking casually with the friend beside him. Many girls wanted to stand next to him, giggling and jostling each other. He merely curved his thin lips into a faint smile. His bright, flirtatious eyes, hidden behind silver frames, seemed to hold a hint of tenderness for everyone. The boy looked relaxed and lazy. He casually raised a hand to rub the back of his neck, then lowered his eyes and teased them. "Careful, everyone. Don't shove me off the edge." Cen Ning watched his smile, pressed her lips together, and took out her phone. She secretly snapped a photo. Scratches on the old glass made the image blurry, blurring his figure too. Cen Ning went through several phones afterward, but she always kept that photo. Cen Ning thought that Zhou Zhihuai probably never recognized her, even by graduation. But she always remembered his smiling eyes. A boy in the fresh morning sun and breeze, with an easy, carefree air. She also kept the text messages he'd sent her on her old phone for a long time. When the messages could no longer be transferred, she copied them down word by word. Cen Ning never expected that they would meet again. In the dim light of a private dining room, the tall, elegant man braced one hand against the doorframe, hovering close around her. He lowered his eyes. They were still those same bright, flirtatious eyes. He leaned toward her, then stopped just short of getting too close. "Did you lose a game of Truth or Dare and have to ask for my contact info?" "Didn't I give it to you before?" "In my ordinary, forgettable youth, you were the only vivid thing." -An insecure, ugly duckling who transforms into a beautiful swan × a handsome, roguish young aristocrat ★ Upcoming novel: Old Dreams At a Jiang family banquet, Jiang Nuan met Mu Chengze for the first time. He was a young singer who had shot to fame in the entertainment industry, and the Mu family's long-lost young master, recently returned to the family. Naturally, the moment he appeared, everyone flocked around him. Jiang Nuan, however, had no time to pay attention. Beneath the deep night sky, the rose garden cut off the clamor and decadence of the banquet hall. She crouched beneath the roses, crying silently, until a clean, slender hand reached out to her. Jiang Nuan looked up through tear-blurred eyes. In the distant moonlight, she met a pair of eyes as deep as the sea. The young man lowered his gaze. His voice, the one that drove countless people wild, sounded cool and calm beneath the moonlight. "Miss Jiang, if you don't want to marry into the Chen family, you could consider me." Jiang Nuan stared blankly at the man's sharply defined, strikingly handsome face. A courage she couldn't explain rose within her. She took his hand. Later, Mu Chengze, who had never had a scandal since his debut and never appeared on variety shows, was revealed to be joining the newest season of The Heart-Throbbing One. The internet erupted. Speculation was everywhere, but he said nothing. On the day the show was officially announced, Mu Chengze posted a photo on Weibo. It showed a rose on a windowsill beneath the moon. @Mu Chengze: Old Dreams "No one can claim Mount Fuji as their own just because they love it, but a rose can be yours." "You are a gentle old dream of mine, a dream that has lasted for years, a beautiful dream I never want to wake from." -Gentle beauty × devoted younger man Theme: It's never too late to start learning