Hide Half of Your Goodness

The book next door, Winter Fireflies, is now live. Please add it to your collection!

/This book is free in its entirety and will not be serialized behind a paywall. Thank you for your support!/

Ever since the transfer student became her deskmate, the two of them have often sat in silence, staring each other down, as if locked in a secret contest that sparks invisible flames between them.

In Chi Ye's eyes: Xuan Ning may have a face like a peach, but deep down she's wicked.

In Xuan Ning's eyes: Chi Ye has "I don't care" written all over his face, always acting as if nothing concerns him and everything is calm.

-

Before leaving the country, they face each other in silence on the rooftop.

In the end, Chi Ye only says six words to Xuan Ning: "May all go well for you."

-

On a snowy night two years later, Chi Ye finally pins her against a massive floor-to-ceiling window. Xuan Ning curls her lip in unconcerned amusement and replies with a laugh, "That doesn't work on me anymore."

Chi Ye slowly raises his head, eyes red, and answers the question she asked him long ago.

"Because I can't control myself anymore. Because so much time has passed, and I still can't forget you. Because... I miss you so much."

Reader's guide:

1. Slow burn / each other's first love / both sexually inexperienced / happy ending

2. They save each other

3. A little monster beneath a calm exterior X a cool, unflappable powerhouse

--

Blurb for Winter Fireflies next door:

In a foreign land that year, Yu Jia wore a filthy, ragged dress and dropped down into a pile of garbage, her face covered in dust.

She survived day by day by scavenging through trash, living a life as insignificant as an ant. She was an orphan abandoned by the world, a pariah everyone despised.

The day she tried to drown herself, Yu Jia met a man.

He seemed lazy and indifferent to everything around him. With one hand in his pocket and his eyes narrowed in weary amusement, he looked at her like she was a child with special needs.

As they faced off, he spoke first. "What are you doing?"

"I don't want to live anymore."

"Oh." He looked like he was enjoying the show, pointing lazily into the distance. "Then go somewhere else. Don't do it here. I don't want to see something filthy. I just want to enjoy the ocean in peace."

"Do you own this stretch of sea?"

"No. But you can't do that right under my nose."

Later, Yu Jia tells Jiang Zeyan, "Take me with you."

Later still, Nanchuan City sees its heaviest snowfall of the year. Jiang Zeyan sits by a floor-to-ceiling window patterned with shadows of snow, his elbows resting on his knees. His phone chimes, and he receives a bank transfer.

Then it chimes again: a text from an unknown number.

Only three words, but they say goodbye with the decisiveness of a clean cut.

--We're even.

Theme: Pull yourself out of the abyss. Be a sunflower that grows toward the sun, kid!