Female Writer [Millennium]

In 1999, Lu Ling had already published several novels, some of which had been adapted into hit TV dramas. Her husband was successful, and her daughter was bright and adorable.

Just as she resolved to break through her writer's block and take her career to the next level, her husband suddenly went bankrupt, fled to America, and left her with his debts.

Lu Ling refused to leave her country, and even in dire financial straits, she resolutely divorced him.

When she was in her teens and at her poorest, her senior fellow student Pu Hong had helped her discover her talent. The moment he learned she was divorced, he rushed to find her with a ring in hand, ready to propose.

Only after hearing his proposal did Lu Ling smile and say, "But I registered my marriage with Kai Ji last month."

His younger half-brother, Yu Kai Ji, wheeled himself out. "Brother, you were always bringing her home to write back then. That's how I met her."

Nearly twenty years ago, the three of them had lived under the same roof as teenagers. Lu Ling knew only that Yu Kai Ji was a genius in chemistry. She had no idea that, even then, he was her most devoted reader and pen pal.

Having chosen money and passion when she was young, she now wanted a purely Platonic marriage.

On her wedding day, since both her parents had died, Pu Hong escorted her to the ceremony with her arm in his, in his capacity as her senior fellow student. Yu Mo, Yu Kai Ji's adopted son, had just won an equestrian competition in Europe and came to the wedding, too.

The eighteen- or nineteen-year-old blushed as he watched her at the wedding, just as his father had when he first met her.

A few months later, lost in the pain and confusion of her writer's block, Lu Ling put her arms around the young man who had boldly pursued her in the middle of the night.

After that, nothing could be contained:

Pu Hong used evidence of this absurd affair to threaten her into divorcing Yu Kai Ji;

Yu Mo rushed into the stands and kissed her in front of the cameras as he claimed the championship at a major competition;

she discovered the letters Pu Hong had written to her twenty years ago, which Yu Kai Ji had hidden away;

and her ex-husband, having quickly made his fortune in America and achieved success, returned to ask her to remarry him.

Meanwhile, the film adaptation of Lu Ling's novel, Love, Lies, and Scratch Paper, won six awards at the Cannes Film Festival, including Best Screenplay.

Everyone turned the spotlight on the woman writer behind the film.

[Content Warnings]

1. The heroine is not a virgin, while the men are. Every man fell for the heroine at first sight when he was young and has only ever loved her. Each man has his own flaws, and the story includes melodramatic misunderstandings, deception, and coercive pursuit.

2. The heroine is already 36 when the story begins. If that is not for you, proceed with caution. She is not conventionally beautiful, but she is talented. She was poor in her youth and shines brilliantly in middle age. Her thinking is shaped both by the limitations of her era and by her own progressive ideas. She is naturally passionate and easily tempted.

3. Half the story follows the heroine's growth, and half focuses on romance. There are many flashbacks to the 1980s through the 2000s, and the ending or extras also include stories about the heroine after 2020.

4. This is an imaginative premise, though it may not go very far.

Theme: A good romance can't beat a well-worn pen.