How to Love a Rose

■ Previews for upcoming stories: I'll Give You Three Scoops of Snow and Cicadas Forbidden. Blurbs below.

/1/ Xia Yier writes fanfiction for popular fandoms. Online, she crawls around in the shadows; in real life, she's an introverted loner. She also has to scramble for money to cover her university expenses, pretending to be extroverted to earn a living.

The public display of her Weibo profile visit history was the final straw. Just as she decided to leave the fandom, some kind netizen bought her an SVIP membership.

Then she spotted her idol He Chu in her Weibo visitor list.

[He visited your profile frequently yesterday.]

[He visited your profile multiple times yesterday.]

Seven straight days of "frequent visits," and on the eighth day, they finally stopped.

Before midnight, Xia Yier yawned and sent her idol a private message: [Hey, are you here to read your own fanfiction?]

He replied instantly: [Hello. Would you be willing to enter into a contractual relationship with me?]

Xia Yier: [? Did your account get hacked???]

/2/ The birthday banquet was filled with clinking glasses and lively conversation.

He Chu wore a perfunctory, distant smile, but seriousness spread through his eyes as he held out a hand in invitation. "Miss Xia, would you care to dance with me?"

Just before the turn in the dance, he suddenly raised a hand and tapped her between the brows. His tone was as languid and composed as ever. "Xia Yier, relax."

--No one heard her heart pounding.

After the banquet, she got lost in the vast back garden.

In the dim light, she heard people murmuring. "It was just one dance. With her background, there's no way Young Master He will stay with her."

Cold rain suddenly poured down. He Chu, soaked and looking thoroughly miserable, finally found Xia Yier gazing up at the rain in a Roman-column pavilion. He let out a barely perceptible sigh of relief and asked with deliberate nonchalance, "Admiring the rain?"

She turned her head, her eyes full of earnestness. "He Chu, I know my place. I don't have any other feelings for you."

He Chu paused, his tone casual. "Sure."

His hand, hidden behind his back and gripping a thick stack of love letters, crumpled their edges. His fingers clenched until they turned white.

/3/ Later, a netizen uploaded a video they'd taken by chance.

Beneath a jujube tree, He Chu, dressed in a pure black trench coat, brushed a jujube fruit from the woman's hair and kissed her deeply, intently, the veins in his neck winding into sharp relief.

After the kiss, his earlobes were bright red. He bent a knuckle against his lips, coughing twice to cover it up, his voice hoarse. "Xia Yier, will you marry me today?"

Xia Yier smiled and shook her head. "Not a chance."

Netizen: [? Bro, who is this? Introduce us!]

He Chu simply tagged her Weibo account, his tone so cocky it was infuriating: [This is my wife. She just agreed to write fanfiction about us for the rest of her life. You can't see her.]

Netizen: [?]

#He Chu, the grudge of having my wife stolen is irreconcilable#

P.S.

1. One-on-one romance, both leads are each other's first.

2. The hero has a one-sided crush at first, which later becomes mutual.

3. Neither lead is perfect. They both grow over time.

4. Part /3/ is the couple's everyday proposal (their little game).

Blurb archived 23/10/26

--Cicadas Forbidden--

/1/ Yan Sijin has had a crush on the same boy for far too many years.

He's a gifted young man, always ranking first in competitions and exams. His gaze is always tired and carefree, and he fits in with the crowd while remaining free-spirited and dazzling.

Yet no one knows that she and he share a secret hideout.

After school one day, the cicadas were deafening. Halfway along her route, a warm rain suddenly poured down on her.

She rushed to the abandoned railway tracks that she considered their secret hideout, only to see the boy holding an umbrella. His fingers were long and distinct, his gaze tired, and he carried a bitter fragrance that left a sweet aftertaste.

He tilted the umbrella toward her, keeping her dry.

Their breaths mingled, their hearts fluttered.

After that, they often shared their secret in silence, separated by a sheet-metal wall.

Yan Sijin knew from the start that he didn't belong here.

Sure enough, he later secured a place at a top university and never came back; while she heard that he grew ever more dazzling, receiving countless expressions of admiration and praise.

/2/ They reunited years later at a gathering for outstanding alumni.

The moment he looked her way, she averted her gaze.

He walked up to her, his tone mild and his manner refined and dignified. "A pleasure to meet you, Miss Yan."

When someone nearby asked about them, he said, "We met by chance. Miss Yan still owes me a promise."

No one knew that through thousands of days and nights, he had remembered, imagined, and reconstructed the date she had never shown up for.

-

One day, Zhu Yu returned to their old haunt. In a pavilion beside the abandoned tracks, he discovered a great pile of letters sent to him years ago. They were all signed:

Yan Sijin.

He suddenly remembered that he had joined the literature club back then and earnestly asked for advice on how to write a love letter in the form of an argumentative essay.

The usual teasing and whooping from the audience went on and on.

It turned out she was in the literature club too, quietly watching him from below the stage, unaware that the legendary argumentative-essay love letter had always been written for her.

/3/ "I don't know how far apart ordinary people and geniuses are, and I don't think the humanities and sciences are complete opposites.

All I know is that I, an ordinary humanities student, kept working hard and finally made it to your side. You're hailed as a genius in the sciences.

The distance between us is finally no longer 1,700 kilometers."

--From a letter by Yan Sijin

--

"Waiting for my unrequited love to see the light of day."

Theme: A story about love, ideals, and courage.