A Gentle Knife

A gentle blade, every cut fatal

{Bad-tempered x sweet on the surface, dark within}

Chu Wen had loved her next-door neighbor, Brother Fu Yan, for as long as she could remember. On her twentieth birthday, she held out a pair of matching rings and confessed her feelings to him.

All she got in return was a cold glance. Disgusted, he called her by her full name and dodged her reaching hand. "Chu Wen, do you have no sense of self? No self-respect?"

The next day, she made him lunch herself and took it to his office, only to see him smiling as he opened the front passenger door for another woman.

That night, rain poured down. She watched helplessly as his car drove away, then hid in a street corner and sobbed. The cold rain made her shiver, and her heart finally turned cold, too.

Later, when her mother told her to go on blind dates, she went every time. She completely put him out of her mind.

The little girl who had followed him around for twenty years had run off. Seeing her arm in arm with different men made him feel like he had a bone stuck in his throat.

The Chu family held her a coming-of-age party. It was called a coming-of-age party, but in reality they had gathered the eligible young men in their social circle so she could pick one.

Fu Yan narrowed his eyes as he watched her dance with someone, her arm linked through his. He muttered a curse and ground out his cigarette.

He followed her into the stairwell and took hold of her slender wrist, then gently suggested, "Getting annoyed? Why not use me?"

She blinked and shook her head. "But I don't want to spend decades living with you. I have a sense of self now, and self-respect."

She watched the tension in his jaw, her bright eyes sparkling. "Brother, regret it now?"

"But it's too late." She smiled sweetly and twisted the knife in his heart. "Since you're here, and men understand men best, why don't you help me pick a husband?"

Fu Yan's brow twitched. "I pick someone. Then what?"

Chu Wen smiled again, carefree and guileless. "Whoever you pick, I'll marry."

She really did exactly as she said.

At her engagement party, she chatted and laughed with her fiance until Fu Yan could take no more and carried her off.

The next day, what was done could not be undone.

She hooked a finger under her shoulder strap and pushed him away. "You're nothing special. Let go of me. I'm leaving."

Fu Yan clenched his jaw and held her tight, asking in a muffled voice where she was going.

Chu Wen smiled. "I should go back and find out what my fiance is like in bed."

Theme: Think before you speak and act.