[Younger Man and Older Woman / Mutual Healing / The First Love Turns to Shattered Glass, Then Gets Taken In / Reunion After a Long Separation]
Seventeen-year-old Shen Ci thought Yu Shu had arrived walking on a beam of light.
Back then, his father had died. He had to work odd jobs to support his mother and younger sister, while still going to school.
Every teacher thought he was beyond help, unruly, and always talking back.
Only she saw the hardship hidden beneath his disguise.
Yu Shu was a university student who had come to teach in a mountain village. Beautiful, bright, and bold, she slowly made her way into his world in her own way.
She really was like the sun: strong and dazzling, pulling him out of the mud and warming his entire seventeenth year.
But the sun always sets.
On the day Yu Shu left, Shen Ci locked himself at home for an entire day. When he finally came out, he was a different person. For Yu Shu, he was willing to abandon his pride and do whatever it took.
He never wanted to be left without even the right to ask her to stay again.
Five years later, they met again. Yu Shu was wearing an ill-fitting frog mascot costume, crouched by the river and singing a birthday song to a little frog, sobbing her heart out.
Crying in a fire exit. Losing control outside a movie theater.
At those moments, Shen Ci felt as if his heart were being crushed in a vise.
How had the girl in his memories, so spirited she could raise the roof, become like this?
Unable to stop himself, he reached out to her and coaxed, "Would you come with me?"
Later, everyone in Sucheng knew that Shen Ci had a woman by his side. He protected her so thoroughly that not even a drop of water could get through. He used to be the ruthless man who could force someone into bankruptcy with a cold expression across the negotiating table, yet when peeling shrimp for Yu Shu, his voice softened: "Is it too hot?"
Someone asked Yu Shu, "Isn't Shen Ci just too good to you?"
Yu Shu looked out the window. Shen Ci was on tiptoe, reaching for a crabapple blossom on a tree. Sunlight fell across his youthful profile, making him look just like the boy she'd protected all those years ago.
She suddenly smiled, a light returning to her eyes. "It's not that he's good to me. He made me brave enough to be good to the world again."
Shen Ci came hurrying in with the flowers, presenting them to her like a precious treasure. "Yu Shu, look. Don't they look like the one you picked for me back then?"
This time, he would be her sun.
He would spend his whole life repaying her for the light she'd given him at seventeen.
[Reader's Guide]
1. The heroine once healed the hero, and later he heals her. A mutual healing story where they choose each other.
2. The younger boy grows into a towering tree and carefully brings the girl who was once his first love back home.
3. No contrived misunderstandings, only the straightforward sweetness of "You once lit up my world, and now it's my turn to warm yours."
Please add my upcoming novel to your reading list! Title: Cats in the Dark Alley
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Jiang Xunyan, the legendary "top student" of Tanchuan No. 1 High School.
He always sits in the front row for exams, and his grades are so good that the teachers give him all kinds of special treatment.
On top of that, he has a face so stunning it's almost offensive, with extraordinary bone structure, long legs, and a slender, fair complexion.
He's the kind of person who makes ordinary people feel inferior just by standing near him, and to make matters worse, he has a sharp tongue.
Everyone wonders who could ever be good enough for him, and who could possibly put up with him.
Just when everyone was enjoying the idea that the unattainable flower would remain forever out of reach, he came down from his pedestal.
Intimate photos of him with a girl were posted for the entire school to see.
After asking around, everyone settled on the unremarkable Wen Tangzhi.
A petite, obedient-looking girl with short hair.
If there was anything unusual about her,
it was the rumor that she'd taken a notorious troublemaker and academic underachiever from their grade as her "underling."
But no one thought much of it. They all agreed that Wen Tangzhi must have latched onto Jiang Xunyan. After all, it was obvious at a glance who was on top and who was on the bottom.
Only later did they learn that Jiang Xunyan was the one who had been scheming to cling to her all along.
Only, his scheming really was scheming.
He carefully plotted to win Wen Tangzhi's heart and make her fall for him.
Then, at the happiest moment of her life, pop! He would burst her dream.
He wanted to see her cry, to see her suffer, to see her crying and begging him not to leave.
Everyone thought he was manly and tough.
But nobody knew that in the end, he was the one who cried, the one who suffered, the one who begged her through tears not to leave.
On the day Jiang Xunyan learned the truth, his eyes went red with rage. He called Wen Tangzhi again and again in all their group chats.
But she seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth, without a single response.
Wen Tangzhi: a super-phony black lotus who sees through everything but says nothing, and takes what she can get
"It was just for fun. How did you end up taking it seriously?"
Jiang Xunyan: a proud Persian cat, starved for love and so pure-hearted he could burst, who thinks his plans are flawless but is really just stubborn and softhearted
"It was just for fun. Why can't we keep playing?"
Two equally matched people trying to lure each other in. Who's the real master hunter?
Theme: There will always be someone who loves you
