Fuji's Gentleness

[Print edition now available. Weibo: @Dear Xiudao]

[Please add my new book, Old Love, New Marriage]

When Jiang Zhiyao pursued Meng Qian, her roommate warned her.

"That Jiang guy is a total playboy. Whatever you do, don't fall for him."

Meng Qian thought it over, then gave a helpless laugh. "But I've already fallen for him."

His eyes.

Jiang Zhiyao pursued Meng Qian for nearly half a year, bringing her meals three times a day and wishing her good morning and good night.

His sincerity won over everyone around Meng Qian. At last, his efforts paid off.

Just as everyone thought Jiang Zhiyao had turned over a new leaf for Meng Qian, he cheated on her.

Meng Qian's roommate saw him pinning a woman against a bar hallway wall and kissing her passionately.

On the day they broke up, Jiang Zhiyao showed not the slightest remorse. Instead, he jabbed a finger hard at Meng Qian's slender shoulder. "You really think too highly of yourself. Did you actually believe I was madly in love with you?"

"I pursued you because they said you were hard to get."

"Turns out you weren't anything special."

Meng Qian calmly slapped him and walked away without looking back.

Later, Jiang Zhiyao realized he couldn't forget Meng Qian.

Then he happened to hear that Meng Qian's new boyfriend had eyes just like his.

So he got the idea of asking her to take him back.

On Meng Qian's birthday, Jiang Zhiyao used alcohol as an excuse to show up at her party.

In a dim corner of the terrace, he saw Meng Qian pinning a well-dressed man against the wall and kissing him passionately.

Between kisses, the man asked Meng Qian in a deep, sensual voice, "I heard from your classmate that my eyes look like your ex-boyfriend's?"

Meng Qian's red lips glistened as she smiled alluringly in his arms. "She got it wrong."

"It's my ex-boyfriend's eyes that look like yours."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is... you're the original, and he's the substitute. You don't look like him. He looks like you."

"Did you ever love him?"

"Never."

Around the corner, Jiang Zhiyao stumbled as he overheard them, struck as if by lightning.

[He thought he could never fall for a girl eight years younger than him. But later, love stirred like the wind, and even when the wind stopped, it wouldn't die down., Gu Shishen]

[Reading Guide]

* A gentle, celibate animal doctor × a clear-eyed campus beauty; the second male lead fails to win back his ex.

* Both leads are sexually inexperienced. The heroine has had a past relationship; the hero has not. They are eight years apart in age.

* The male lead is not Jiang Zhiyao. The heroine has always had a secret crush on the male lead; Jiang Zhiyao is a substitute.

* Blurb revised on 2022.7.27; screenshot saved as proof.

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Next book: Old Love, New Marriage. Please add it to your list.

[Part of the Marriage Road to Bliss series]

- A seemingly carefree young master from Beijing's elite circles × a genuinely clear-eyed obstetrician

- From casual to official; lust first, love later; a marriage of convenience that reunites former lovers

During graduation season, Xie Yao accepts a friend's invitation to join their house-sharing plan.

She doesn't expect Gu Chen, the family's golden boy, to be there too.

Xie Yao thinks that even if they live under the same roof, they won't get too close.

Until one stormy night, when she's drunk and corners the man in the bathroom, gazing up at him with hazy eyes. "Young Master Gu, want to explore the mysteries of the human body together?"

Gu Chen: "?"

After that night, they become a secret relationship.

Later, Xie Yao comes to her senses and calls it off. "I'm getting a little bored."

Gu Chen has just lit a cigarette for after sex. Before he can take a puff, his expression freezes.

After a pause, he gives a cold laugh. "What a coincidence."

Years later, they meet again at a class reunion. Everyone is having fun, shouting that no one's going home sober.

Little do they know that, in the bathroom just beyond a closed door, Gu Chen, his shirt disheveled, looks down at Xie Yao's black pencil skirt and asks in a hoarse voice, "Taking it off?"

Later, Xie Yao's family pressures her to marry and locks her in a second-floor bedroom.

In the dead of night, someone knocks on the glass window, and a beam of light cuts through the darkness.

Xie Yao looks over and sees Gu Chen's tall figure outlined by the moon outside.

He looks at her through the glass, his voice muffled as if by dust. "Xie Yao, let's start over."

This time, neither of us is allowed to get bored.

- Both leads are sexually inexperienced and each other's first love. A marriage of convenience that rekindles old love; the male lead falls first.

- Neither lead is perfect.

- The premise and blurb were written on 2024.04.26 and revised on 2024.12.19; screenshots saved as proof.

Thesis: Love one person for a lifetime.