In the Mist of the South Wind

Also by this author: Mr. Rose Has Bloomed

Falling in love with Shen Fangyi was the most outrageous thing Chen Zhou ever did.

She put on his white shirt and copied him, bringing half a cigarette to her lips.

His hand, hanging beside his suit jacket, swept in and snatched the cigarette before it reached her mouth. He took it to his own lips, smiling wickedly. "Couldn't you learn something better? You had to learn a bad habit."

She let him stub out the cigarette. The taste lingered blandly on her lips as she leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window of the high-rise and watched couples across from the school. A boy rode with a girl on his bike, and a shower of cherry blossoms tumbled around them. She suddenly asked, "Shen Fangyi, do you have a bicycle?"

He stood in the shadow behind the curtain, calm and still. He tilted his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing. He was as charming and dangerous as ever. "I have plenty of cars in my garage. You can pick whichever one you like. As for a bicycle..."

He smiled with effortless ease, his voice tender and indulgent, as if coaxing an innocent girl. "I really don't have one."

Chen Zhou smiled along with him.

Later, when she turned twenty-one, she never again set foot in that penthouse suite that had once towered into the clouds and stayed brightly lit for her every night.

*

Years later, standing on the other side of the ocean, she heard children at a Confucius Institute, learning Chinese, recite each word:

"The south wind knows my thoughts and carries my dreams to the western isles."

In a daze, she remembered how he had come from a thousand miles away through smoke and mist, standing beneath the low eaves of a humble house, in the midst of everyday life, smiling at her as he said

"Sweep away the dust, and let the warmth of home begin anew."

"Little Zhou, may every year bring you good fortune, and every day bring you peace."

Eight-year age gap

Happy ending

"The south wind knows my thoughts and carries my dreams to the western isles" is from the poem Song of the Western Isles.

Another older-man romance coming soon

The day Ye Sang first met Shen Qianyu, she was dragging a sack of luggage from a remote border town to Changjing to study.

By chance, she came across Shen Qianyu at a street corner, dressed in black and smoking away. She asked him where she could rent a place nearby.

On a snowy night, the little girl was so thin she looked like a stick. Shen Qianyu was probably bored after drinking, so he took a cigarette and spent the whole night helping her look for a place in the shabby alleys.

Later, he even rented her his apartment.

Ye Sang thought Shen Qianyu was a rich kid who stuck his nose into other people's business.

When they met again, Ye Sang was auditioning with a group of actors. Afterward, at a drinking party, they took their seats one by one alongside the important guests.

Amid the swirling smoke, Shen Qianyu crossed his legs as the casting director beside him offered him a cigarette. He didn't bow his head, only looked at her lightly.

"Sang Sang, come sit beside me."

Everyone immediately changed their attitude toward her and eagerly invited her to sit down.

Only then did she realize he wasn't merely a rich kid who stuck his nose into other people's business. He was also an untouchable figure in Changjing.

After the party, he sat in the car, slowly rubbing the back of her neck.

Ye Sang's skin prickled. His expression was cool, yet his eyes were full of tenderness. "From now on, sit beside me every time, all right?"

At the beginning, he told her they were both free to end things, and that the other person couldn't cling on.

When Ye Sang tried to leave, he stayed silent. His usually impassive face took on a hint of anger.

"Without me, how will you deal with them? Have you really thought this through?"

She said nothing.

"Answer me. I, Shen Qianyu, will only ask once." His voice was unusually harsh.

She bit her lip. "I've thought it through."

After saying that, she returned his key along with everything else.

He took the key, then threw it away along with the half-smoked cigarette and walked off without looking back.

When they met again, she won the Best Newcomer Award and came down the red carpet hand in hand with a hugely popular actor known for his on-screen pairings.

The man hidden in the dark grabbed her wrist. When he saw the face he'd never been able to forget, his rising anger subsided.

He sighed.

"Sang Sang, how exactly have I treated you badly?"

Theme: Growing strong and independent, even through thorny paths