Roses and Wine

Xue Yuan took on an unusual commission: painting a mural illustration for a bar in her city. So, under the pretense of scouting the place, the reclusive illustrator, whose surname was Xue, stepped into a bar for the first time in her life. In a drunken haze, she spent an entire Moonlight Serenade mourning the unrequited love she'd left behind in college. Then she ran straight into the person she'd been in love with at the foot of the stairs. - Ji Sui'an reacted quickly and caught the young woman, grateful that he hadn't taken his guitar offstage just yet. "Miss, are you okay?" The woman he'd caught stared at him blankly for several seconds. Then her eyes widened slightly, and her face turned bright red. Ji Sui'an raised an eyebrow and was about to speak when she pressed her lips together and asked in a soft, serious voice: "Are those two holes in your face decorated with longans?" "...What?" A naturally flirtatious, roguish bar owner x a proud, sharp-tongued illustrator --My next story will be this one, Stealing a Kiss from a Rose. At the start of summer, one of Xie Fu's longtime friend's daughters was invited back to China to serve as a specially appointed music professor at Fu University. A week later, Xie Xunyi's home had gained both an expensive custom-made piano and a young Chinese-French girl who spoke decent Chinese but had an extremely limited vocabulary. The girl was sweet, well-behaved, and beautiful, but Xie Xunyi still found her troublesome. He thought the little doll's piano playing was a bit noisy, that she had too much romance in her bones, and that her clumsy Chinese constantly set off his professional pet peeves. But a year later, when the little doll was about to leave, Xie Xunyi found that things had become even more troublesome. A home without piano music felt far too quiet. Rainy days without French folk songs felt so damp they irritated him. Mornings without her praising him until he was utterly full of himself left him unable to get going. "You're leaving?" He frowned. "Have you finished memorizing your Xinhua Dictionary?" Xie Qiang looked horrified. "But, brother, my work visa has expired." "It's true, work visas don't last long enough." Xie Xunyi thought for a moment. "So, would you consider staying in China another way?" Theme: True love fears no obstacles.