The Princess and Me

My next book is called "He Is Far Away". Blurb at the bottom

*

July 15, the Ghost Festival, was the day Yu Zhan saw Chi Yu again.

The rain fell as it had in the past. Dressed all in black, the man leaned casually against a streetlight.

Through the shifting light and shadow, his dark, indifferent gaze swept toward Yu Zhan. The moment their eyes met, she thought of all the ghost stories she had ever heard.

And he had been the one to tell them to her.

*

Reunited with an old friend, Yu Zhan intended to keep her distance from him.

But the harder she tried, the more often they ran into each other.

*

Chi Yu spent Yu Zhan's twenty-fourth birthday with her.

That night, after drinking, he sat across from her.

He lowered his eyes to look at her. His clear voice filled the air, but she heard it turn husky as he suddenly said, "Yu Zhan, would you like to take a closer look at me?"

In an instant, fireworks filled the sky outside the window.

Watching that scene, Yu Zhan suddenly remembered the year she had first met him.

A long path on a winter night. The two of them crouched quietly together. The boy's eyes shone like black obsidian, their light falling on her.

He smiled at her. "Don't cry," he said first. After a pause, he added, "You just want to see fireworks, don't you? I promise, I'll set them off for you every year from now on."

*

Yu Zhan thought he had forgotten.

She thought that, to him, she was once again someone he would never choose.

But she didn't know.

Even after they parted, every year the city she lived in would have fireworks set off just for her.

He kept every promise he had made to her.

*

Chi Yu fell for someone.

At first, he said, "Yu Zhan, would you like to take a closer look at me? Then try loving me."

Later, he said, "You don't have to love me. Love yourself."

*

He loved her so much.

He read a hundred books for her and put them on the bookshelf. The one he used most often, kept on the top shelf, was called "How to Communicate Well".

For her sake, this man with a tongue harder than stone still learned how to speak kindly.

*

"What about you?"

When a friend asked her that, Yu Zhan answered earnestly, "I like him too. In fact, I wrote him a love letter once. I called it "The Young Master and Me"."

// The title was inspired by "The Young Master and Me".

// The author is terrible at writing blurbs. The actual story will probably be better? (Well, I'm not totally sure.)

// Childhood sweethearts + mutual secret crushes + reunion after a long separation...

Divider

Coming soon ★★★ "He Is Far Away (Secret Crush Story)"

After finishing the last painting in her Small Town series, Su Yao sat down for an interview with a reporter.

As usual, the reporter asked what had inspired her to create the series.

For some reason, she suddenly decided not to give the standard answer.

Looking at the sparse curtain of rain outside the interview room, she said frankly, "Every painting in this series was inspired by a boy."

"For a while, I wasn't sleeping well. I would lie awake all night. Whenever I picked up a paintbrush, I thought of what he had looked like in high school.

Actually, by then I hadn't seen him or dreamed about him in a long time...

As for "Small Town", it was the image of a hidden paradise that he described to a friend one ordinary Monday, when he was seventeen."

The reporter stared at the wooden cabin in the painting, curiosity brimming. Looking at the girl before him, her almond eyes lowered beneath the studio lights, he ventured the most direct question he could think of: "Then would you say this is a confession, or does it count as a, "

"No," Su Yao said with a smile, knowing what he was about to ask. She cut him off and corrected him. "When I paint someone, I'm saying goodbye to them."

"So, it's goodbye, not a confession of love."

"When I paint someone, I'm saying goodbye to them."

"And he's in that painting."

★

At the end of that day, after the interview, Su Yao unexpectedly bumped into someone in the corridor outside the interview room.

He wore a black coat and looked at her with striking, dark eyes.

Su Yao met his gaze.

His voice was husky.

First, he said, "Sorry."

Then he asked, "Am I a little late?"

Theme: Get a good night's sleep and have a healthy relationship.