Fresh Mint Green

★ Campus + city life | Mutual secret crushes | Reunited after years apart

Rational, resilient flower shop owner x cocky, handsome corporate CEO

The invisible ink took seven years to show. His discovery of my secret crush came on the very same day., Xu Jianing

The first time Xu Jianing saw Xue Zhan was on a rainy day.

He came into the flower shop to get out of the rain, a bodyguard holding an umbrella for him behind him. He was very tall and wore a pair of brown-tinted sunglasses. He refused to take them off even indoors, hiding his eyes and making his expression impossible to read.

Xu Jianing stared at him for a few seconds, but all she could think was: "Wearing sunglasses in the rain. Who are you trying to impress?"

Later, they were in the same class for three years, yet seemed to have nothing to do with each other.

Before graduation, Xu Jianing offered him a proper, conventional wish: May you grow wings and soar like the fish of the northern sea.

It took Xue Zhan many years to notice the words hidden underneath:

The Kunpeng hides among the clouds, and you hide in my heart.

-

Years later, at her best friend's wedding, Xu Jianing reached for the bouquet, annoyed that someone else had grabbed it first. She looked up to protest and met his eyes.

They were cold, phoenix-shaped eyes, their outer corners tilted upward, framed by long, thick lashes. He looked noble and proud, even colder and more distant than he had at school.

Xue Zhan let go and asked as if it were an afterthought, "Are you that eager to catch it because you can't wait to marry your boyfriend?"

One day after she and Xue Zhan reunited, she suddenly remembered the "threatening letter" he'd given her back then. The yellowed envelope was thin. When she opened it, a mint leaf fell out. The letter contained just one sentence.

The only thing in this world I cannot have is countless tomorrows with you., Xue Zhan

Reader's Guide:

1. They are each other's first love and have mutual secret crushes. The leads do not have any intimate interactions during high school.

2. A light ensemble cast at school, with students splitting into arts and sciences tracks in high school. Nancheng is fictional.

Blurb for "The Proust Effect"

Rekindled love | Reunited after years apart | City life interspersed with a few school memories

★ An aloof horticulturist x a scheming perfumer

Lin Huaichen, the heartthrob of Ningyuan High School, was aloof and cool, with an ethereal air. He was widely regarded as a flower on a high peak, admired from afar by countless girls who didn't dare reach for him.

Only Xia Suiqiong dared to act, asking him to get bubble tea on the last day of the college entrance exam.

In a little shop filled with the heat of summer, she squeezed out a little extra gardenia-scented hand cream and deliberately brushed it onto the back of his hand. Then she softly explained where her childhood nickname, Tuantuan, came from: "Suiqiong means snow. In summer, the snow clustered on the branches is gardenias."

Xia Suiqiong wasn't sure if Lin Huaichen really remembered the scent of the hand cream, and whether that meant he'd remember her too.

All she knew was that she had long been enthralled by the cool, bamboo-leaf scent clinging to Lin Huaichen. Even after she was the one who broke up with him, whenever she caught that scent elsewhere, she would think of him again.

A habit became an obsession, lasting for years.

The day Lin Huaichen learned of Xia Suiqiong's obsession from someone else, he only sneered. "Xia Suiqiong, if you miss me, just ask me to come back. You don't have to tease me from a distance."

A month later, he changed his tune, sounding almost as if he were negotiating. "Tuantuan, if you haven't found anyone more suitable, maybe we could get back together."

One day, Xia Suiqiong visited Lin Huaichen at home and saw that the entire back garden was filled with gardenia trees he had planted by hand.

The whole world plants pear trees, but I choose to grow gardenias., Lin Huaichen

Theme: Find your own worth and enjoy a life of ease.