Red Gate Crime Files

[My completed novel, "A Secret Crush Echoes Back", is in my author profile. The blurb is below. If you're interested, feel free to check it out~]

[Reader's guide]

1. Modern urban suspense, with standalone cases.

2. The leads are not each other's first partners.

Blurb:

“You hate those people so much, and fought them for so long, only to become just like them in the end. There is no ideal in this world worth paying for with such a fall.”, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Upright younger cop and loyal puppy (head of a criminal investigation team) x flirtatious, mature, sophisticated older woman (business owner)

Gaze into the abyss, and the abyss will surely gaze back.

“Officer Zhou, do you understand me?”

“I do. You're the one I love.”

Zhou Hui cupped her face and gave her a long-awaited kiss.

Older woman and younger woman, strong leads, two sophisticated women, happy ending~

"A Secret Crush Echoes Back"

Gentle, calculating older CEO x prickly, aloof younger secretary

Zhou Shuhe is the CEO of Mingcheng Zhou's Perfume Group.

One fragrance, “Echo of Camphorwood,” made the Zhou family's perfume famous throughout the industry.

At the time, Li Yusheng was a fresh university graduate just starting out.

With no experience or connections, she became Zhou Shuhe's personal secretary.

The industry buzzed with speculation.

Only Li Yusheng knew that she had spent sixteen years in the Zhou household,

with Zhou Shuhe, the eldest daughter of the Zhou family, by her side throughout her childhood and youth.

-

Li Yusheng's youth ended at sixteen.

On her sixteenth birthday, Zhou Shuhe threw her out.

Mingcheng's winter winds and snow cut to the bone,

and their harsh words stung even more.

“Don't let me see you in Mingcheng again.”

Li Yusheng had plenty of pride. In a fit of anger, she really stayed away for seven years.

When she left, she took Mingcheng's winter with her. Not a single snowflake fell in Mingcheng for the next seven years.

-

The year Li Yusheng returned, Mingcheng saw its first snowfall in seven years.

On a snowy night, at the Nanyi Residence,

lights shimmered like scattered gold, and the colored glass gleamed like ice flowers.

The woman sitting at a nearby table warmed Li Yusheng's heart, frozen for seven years.

A single-breasted qipao of incense-dyed silk, a long, pale neck,

embroidered brocade slippers with soft soles, a slender cigarette between her fingers,

a graceful figure as soft as water. Her fingertips brushed the white jade button at her collar, stirring a ripple in Li Yusheng's heart.

The woman's eyes held a shattered river of stars, deep and unfathomable.

Later, beneath the gauzy curtains, they spent a tender night together.

Unable to hold back, Li Yusheng asked, “Why call it Echo of Camphorwood?”

“Many years ago, I planted a camphor tree and waited quietly for it to flower and bear fruit.”

“In my barren, lightless life, you are the ultimate meaning at the end of all desolation.”

Reader's guide:

1. CEO, 31 x secretary, 23 (eight-year age gap), happy ending, one-on-one, first love for both.

2. The leads have no romantic storyline before they come of age. It's more or less a story about a secret crush.

3. Side couple: sharp-tongued, scheming attending physician Gu Yunlin x stubborn, reserved university professor Zhou Zhihé.

Theme: Justice will never be absent!