The Night We Slept

Blurb 1

Chen Xingluo was a dance prodigy whose star had fallen.

With permanently damaged ligaments, her talent manager mother dead, and her fiance having betrayed her, Chen Xingluo lost everything. Once she had dazzled onstage, but now she was a destitute woman in a poor neighborhood, plagued by poverty and alcoholism. Haggard and worn down, she also had to deal with the constant harassment of thugs.

One day, she tore down a flyer for a "Support Group for the Down and Out" in her neighborhood and signed up, braving the bitter wind.

She simply wanted to hear other people's stories.

As expected, the group members were all down-and-out city dwellers. They shared a look of dejection, poverty, and helplessness. Only he was completely different.

The man was mixed-race, with gemstone-blue eyes. He was refined and handsome, yet extremely arrogant. He always sat across from her, looking down at her with those icy blue eyes.

His only misfortune, perhaps, was his outrageously expensive bionic right leg.

On the coldest day of the year, the group leader kindly paired Chen Xingluo with him as support partners.

He refused.

She clearly heard the man, Shen Chi, say in a cold voice, "I'm sorry, Doctor. I'm not used to the cheap smell of alcohol on her."

Though neither of them wanted it, a twist of fate still made her partners with the man who disliked her most. They even had to spend time alone together regularly.

A strange atmosphere began to spread between them.

A sudden downpour trapped them together. When Chen Xingluo woke up, she found herself resting in the crook of his arm. Afraid he might feel she'd crossed a line, she quietly slipped away.

Later, during a group discussion, Chen Xingluo casually mentioned that she planned to remain single for the rest of her life.

After the session, she received two mysterious notes in succession. The handwriting was elegant and powerful, impossible to forget.

They read:

[I disagree]

[Our wedding should be in spring]

Chen Xingluo was sure there was a lunatic in the group.

The man sitting across from her had a calm gaze and the grace of a gentleman in every gesture. When her eyes accidentally met his gemstone-blue ones, Chen Xingluo thought: Surely it can't be him.

Chen Xingluo never knew.

There had once been someone who never missed a single one of her performances. He sat in the audience, watching her shine onstage without looking away, but silently left before she could rush over with her bouquet to her fiance.

[On the nights when you and I sleep, you don't know that you are in my dreams, smiling sweetly in the crook of my arm as we wait for dawn together.]

Blurb written in late November 2022

Theme: Even when you're at your lowest, never give up on yourself.