A Moment of Pleasure

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Wen Huan found Jiang Gao when she was seventeen, at her lowest point.

Her father had just died, and her uncle and aunt had thrown her into an old house to fend for herself.

She'd never lifted a finger around the house, but she was forced to spend the whole night picking up bottles.

That was the night she met Jiang Gao, a disheveled but exceptionally ruthless boy.

She took him home.

From then on, the boy gradually invaded her world.

She'd sworn never to help anyone again, but she charged into a fire without hesitation.

She'd said she wouldn't eat strawberry cake, but he coaxed her into taking a bite.

Even he, the one person she least wanted to stay, was someone she kept.

But just as she finally came to accept him, he vanished from her world.

That night, Wen Huan crouched by the gate, waiting for him to come home as rain poured down in endless strings.

Jiang Gao stood in the rain and kept watch over her all night.

When Wen Huan saw Jiang Gao again, he was the obsessive madman everyone at school talked about.

He loved fighting and hated studying, nothing like the gentle, kind boy she remembered.

She went from chasing after him, to giving up, to turning away.

Jiang Gao always watched from the sidelines.

Until one day, Wen Huan walked into the library laughing and talking with another boy.

Jiang Gao went mad.

He looked at her in despair and begged her softly.

It was the second time he'd begged her. The first was when he'd asked her not to let him leave, and he'd looked just as pitiful then.

But this time, Wen Huan didn't look back.

Later, people at school noticed that their Brother Jiang had changed.

He went from sleeping in class to listening attentively.

He went from fighting to telling others to study hard.

He even started trailing after Wen Huan, the school beauty he used to dismiss, carrying her things and bringing her water every day.

Everyone thought the world at Eighteenth High had turned upside down.

That new world was called Wen Huan.

Tips:

1. The male lead has his reasons, but he'll have to grovel!

2. A story of mutual redemption and becoming better together.

3. Absolutely sweet and doting!!

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[Please add my new story, "Picked Up by My Younger Brother After I Was Shattered to Pieces," to your reading list. Click my profile to check it out. Thank you, my dears!]

[Younger man raises older woman / mutual redemption / the once-unattainable love becomes broken glass, then she's picked back up / reunion after a long separation]

Seventeen-year-old Shen Zi thought Yu Shu had stepped out of the light.

At the time, his father had died, and he had to work odd jobs to support his mother and younger sister while going to school.

Every teacher thought he was incorrigible and rebellious, always talking back to them.

Only she saw the poverty behind his disguise.

Yu Shu was a university student who had come to teach in a mountain village. Beautiful, bright, and bold, she gradually found her way into his world in her own way.

She really was like the sun, strong and dazzling. She pulled him out of the mud and warmed his entire seventeenth year.

But the sun always sets.

The day Yu Shu left, Shen Zi locked himself in the house for a whole day. When he came out, he'd changed completely. For Yu Shu, he was willing to cast aside his pride and do whatever it took.

He didn't want to be left without even the right to ask her to stay.

Five years later, he saw her again. Yu Shu was wearing an ill-fitting frog mascot costume, crouched by a river and singing a birthday song to a little frog, sobbing uncontrollably.

Crying in a fire escape. Losing control outside a movie theater.

In those moments, Shen Zi felt as if his heart were being squeezed tight.

How had the girl he remembered, the one so bold she could tear the roof off, become like this?

Unable to stop himself, he held out a hand and coaxed, "Would you come with me?"

Later, everyone in Sucheng knew Shen Zi had a girl by his side. He protected her so carefully that no one could get near. Once, he'd been ruthless enough to bankrupt people across the negotiating table with a cold expression. Now he softened his voice to peel shrimp for Yu Shu. "Is it too hot?"

Someone asked Yu Shu, "Doesn't Shen Zi treat you too well?"

Yu Shu looked out the window. Shen Zi was standing on tiptoe to reach a crabapple blossom for her. Sunlight fell across his youthful profile, making him look just like the boy she'd once protected all those years ago.

She suddenly smiled, light returning to her eyes. "It's not that he's good to me. He made me brave enough to be good to the world again."

Shen Zi ran in with the flower, holding it out to her like a treasure. "Yu Shu, look! Doesn't it look like the one you picked for me back then?"

This time, he would be her sun.

He was willing to spend the rest of his life repaying her for the light she'd given him at seventeen.

[Reading guide]

1. The heroine once saved the male lead, and later he heals her. A story of two-way redemption and finding one another.

2. The younger man grows into a towering tree and carefully brings his once-unattainable love home.

3. No melodramatic misunderstandings, just the straightforward sweetness of "You lit up my life once. Now it's my turn to warm yours."

Theme: Redeem each other, become better together, and get into college!