A Misplaced Secret Crush

1.

Xiang Simiao had harbored a crush on her dream guy for eight years.

When they met again, the MVP of the basketball court had become a leading technical expert in his field.

A receding tide left the two of them stranded on a wind turbine.

In the cramped, stuffy cabin,

her dream guy sat with his back to her, holding a copy of the Diamond Sutra and reciting it.

Xiang Simiao was on pins and needles. At last, she worked up the courage to confess her feelings.

He turned his head and calmly rejected her.

*

At Qingxin Convent, to fulfill their elders' wishes,

she became her dream guy's girlfriend in name only.

The two began an intense game of push and pull as they lived together.

Just when she thought she'd finally gotten what she wanted, she saw another person's social media post.

It dawned on her: Everything had been out of place from the very beginning.

True love means being together because you love each other, not ending up together and then getting a tiny, false taste of love.

With red eyes, she posted on her social media, then deleted his WeChat and phone number.

2. The day they pretended to be a couple in front of their elders,

Xiang Simiao asked him, "How long will this last? When does it end?"

Guan Jingxing told her, "You decide."

He thought his answer was an understated, enduring confession of love.

Just as he was about to propose, a breakup text suddenly arrived.

*

Later, one day after the two had gotten back together,

Xiang Simiao curled up on the sofa watching a movie. She lamented that the leads had broken up because of a misunderstanding and began to cry.

Beside her, Guan Jingxing handed her a tissue and suddenly laughed.

Xiang Simiao looked up through tearful eyes. "?"

"Good thing I had both a brain and a mouth back then."

---Coming soon: Wait Until I Meet You. Please add it to your favorites---

Xu Zhiyi and Lu Fengting first met by a rice paddy.

Seven-year-old Xu Zhiyi was helping her parents transplant rice seedlings in the paddy.

Lu Fengting, meanwhile, had come to experience farm life as part of a kindergarten activity.

Barefoot, Xu Zhiyi waded through the mud, helping the adults sort the seedlings,

while the pampered young master, wearing rain boots, frowned and refused to step into the field.

The narrow ridge between the paddies separated two different worlds.

Six years later, Xu Zhiyi left the countryside with excellent grades and was admitted through a special program to the most famous middle school in the city.

She and Lu Fengting became deskmates, first for three years, then for another three.

At their high school graduation banquet, when they were about to go their separate ways, her tipsy front-row classmate gossiped that Lu Fengting had received a thirty-million-yuan house as his eighteenth birthday present.

Xu Zhiyi looked up at the sky. "Even in my dreams, I only dare dream of five million."

*

On the day she received her PhD offer, Xu Zhiyi happened to learn that Lu Fengting was engaged.

Beneath a sky full of fireworks, her tears fell silently, unnoticed by anyone.

The river breeze blew all night.

Just before dawn, she sent Lu Fengting a text wishing him well.

She put down her phone and kept reminding herself: Let this long-running unrequited love end here. They had always belonged to different worlds.

Just as she was about to leave, a text notification sounded.

She stared at the screen, stunned, her eyes turning red.

[Lu Fengting: The bride ran away. Will you come save the day?]

My friend's novel, Unexpectedly, My Heart Was Moved (Marriage First, Love Later): a career-minded business elite and natural leader x a career-focused heroine who cares about saving face

Theme: Grow into a better version of yourself through love