The Years We Carried the Torch

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It was the last day before Xie and Ying left Beijing. Meng Zikun had booked a big table at a bar in Gongti to see off the young couple, who had weathered countless hardships and finally made it through to happier days.

Amid the clamor and music, everyone got drunk.

Wen Xiaolou clutched Ying Ning's little hand and wept, "Niuniu, tell me, we all grew up in the same courtyard, so how did you end up falling for that Xie guy of all people?"

Xie Luyan had a terrible reputation ever since he was a kid. He was the sort of person all the younger generation feared, and even the adults would wave their hands when they heard his name. "What? That kid from the Xie family? He's a menace among men!"

At that moment, the menace himself was sitting alone on a sofa, eyes half-lidded as he gazed at the girl opposite him with a teasing smile. He neither denied it nor replied.

Everyone had seen how good Ying Ning was to Xie Luyan. She tried medicine after medicine and persevered day after day, through all the heartbreak and hardship, never giving up. She had nursed a boy teetering on the edge of hell, withering away, into the elegant and graceful man he was today.

Ten years had passed in a flash.

At last, the man who had been silent all evening spoke.

Xie Luyan stood up and drew the girl into his arms. Playing with the ends of her hair, he said, "I was the one who fell for her first."

#

During the years when Xie Luyan's eating disorder was at its worst, every meal felt like torture. His whole family pleaded with him, then coaxed him, and when he occasionally managed to drink a bowl of porridge, his grandparents were ready to burn incense in gratitude.

In those years, he survived on nutritional injections.

One day, his eldest uncle invited an old doctor from the countryside. The doctor was taking his grandfather's pulse when he called Xie Luyan over to have a look, too.

Xie Luyan hadn't wanted to go, but his eldest sister begged him. She also asked him to take a few jars of bird's nest to Chen Ma in the east courtyard while he was at it.

He raised his eyelids slightly and gave a lazy smile. "Making me run errands?"

"That's because Fourth Brother is the best to me."

It was Ying Ning's first time accompanying her grandfather to Beijing. After traveling all day, she was starving.

In the heavily guarded estate, she didn't dare wander around. Her grandfather went to take the host's pulse, while she sat carefully in the living room and waited.

The host's kindhearted servant took her to the kitchen reserved for the staff and made her a bowl of noodles. Ying Ning thanked her again and again.

She leaned over a little square table made of ash wood, sitting properly at one corner, and held a large porcelain bowl decorated with ink-wash flowers in her little hands as she ate with relish.

Xie Luyan stood in the doorway, his lean, long right arm braced against the frame. He held the bird's nest in his left hand. A black coat lay over his refined suit, which hung neatly on his slender frame. Eyes narrowed, he quietly watched the girl in front of him for a full minute.

Ying Ning sensed someone at the door and looked up.

The instant their eyes met, Xie Luyan felt hungry.

It was the first time in seven years.

#After endless nights, he finally found the sun that belonged to him alone

Rekindled romance | Reunion after years apart | First love for both, first time for both | Fostered together in their youth

[Content warning]

This novel has an old-school Beijing elite-circle style, with melodramatic content and exaggerated plotlines. It's made especially for readers who enjoy this sort of thing, so make sure it suits your tastes before diving in!

Theme: May true love last forever.