I Hear Your Voice

Gentle, well-behaved girl × aloof, cocky bad boy, rekindled love

Pastry chef × speech therapist

Song Shuyin has stuttered since childhood. The people around her constantly tease and mock her, and even her own parents abandon her. Her life is bleak until the first day of her sophomore year of high school, when Qi Yue, the school’s celebrated top student, becomes her desk mate.

When a classmate breaks her pen, he makes him apologize;

When she forgets her umbrella on a rainy day, he walks her home;

When their homeroom teacher jokes that she’ll never get into a top university, he takes her to physics competitions, and she eventually earns admission to Jing University through a recommendation.

With each physics competition paper, her girlish feelings begin to take shape, until they spiral beyond her control.

*

Just as she’d hoped, they officially started dating in their first year of college, and she moved into Qi Yue’s apartment to live with him. Behind her back, however, his father tried to break them up.

Because she was a poor girl with a stutter, and didn’t deserve someone as exceptional as Qi Yue.

She refused. Alone, she swallowed the bitterness of being looked down on, wanting only to spend forever with the one person in the world who didn’t mind her stutter.

On Qi Yue’s birthday, she finally learned that he’d only been caring for her because his mother had asked him to. His mother had once fainted at the rice noodle roll shop where Song Shuyin worked, and Song Shuyin had taken her to the hospital.

What he felt for her was gratitude and pity, but never the spark or affection between a man and a woman.

She could only see herself as a joke, so she cleanly walked out of his life and went to France to study.

Only then did Qi Yue understand that what he’d thought was pity was actually the tenderness he felt for a girl he loved. He bitterly regretted his mistake, and it took ten years before he could bring himself to stand before her again.

*

After they reunite, someone asks Qi Yue, "If you could go back in time, would you still choose to meet your first love?"

A deep, resolute voice falls beside Song Shuyin’s ear. He says, "I would."

Coming soon 1: "The Stand-In"

I suddenly really want to write this one, so please add it to your reading lists!

Dignified, aloof CEO × coolheaded, understanding actress

A groveling ex, female lead with amnesia

He never calls her Niannian.

Ling Ruonian’s family and friends all affectionately call her Niannian. Only her boyfriend, Li Yucheng, calls her A Ruo.

She once asked him about it out of curiosity.

The man raised an eyebrow nonchalantly and smiled. "It’s special."

Ling Ruonian felt sweetly pleased for quite some time, until she accidentally stumbled upon his secret and saw a photo of a girl who looked remarkably like her. Only then did she realize that she wasn’t the one who was special. That girl, Lin Jiannian, was.

Li Yucheng treated her as Lin Jiannian’s stand-in, yet deep down he thought she wasn’t worthy of the name "Niannian."

*

After they broke up, a busybody spread rumors in front of Ling Ruonian’s mother, claiming that Ling Ruonian and Li Yucheng’s relationship hadn’t been a proper romance. Her mother was so furious she fainted.

Ling Ruonian explained again and again, but a thorn remained in her mother’s heart. No matter how wonderful her daughter was to her, she could never compare with the man people said she’d been involved with. Their social standing was simply too different.

With no other choice, Ling Ruonian went to the "home" where they’d once lived, hoping to find Li Yucheng and have him explain things to her mother in person. But he no longer lived there. She went to his company, a place where she’d once come and gone freely, but now she couldn’t even get through the door.

After going there day after day, she finally caught sight of his car.

The window slowly lowered, revealing the man’s sharp features. His voice was colder than the snow that had fallen that day. "I have no obligation to do that."

Ling Ruonian stared at him, her legs giving way as she fell to the ground.

The black Rolls-Royce Phantom sped away without pausing.

*

Li Yucheng had never had a woman by his side, until the day he met her, a woman who looked so much like Lin Jiannian.

He’d known Lin Jiannian since childhood, but when she was fifteen, her father took his wife and daughter out to sea, and the three of them drowned themselves.

He thought Lin Jiannian was dead. Everyone thought Lin Jiannian was dead. No one imagined she’d already returned to his side.

She’d simply taken on a different identity, and he hadn’t recognized her.

After learning that Ling Ruonian was Lin Jiannian, Li Yucheng came to the Ling family home with gifts to thank them and apologize. Ling Ruonian’s mother flew into a rage and drove him and his gifts out with a broom.

After that day, everyone in the fishing village knew that a proud, privileged man had knelt all night outside the Ling family home.

Bonus scene:

After their breakup, the man keeps approaching her with ambiguous intentions. Ling Ruonian leans close to his ear and whispers, her eyes calm as a deep pool. "Li Yucheng, what if I told you that I really was pregnant when I went to the hospital a year ago, and that I gave birth to the baby?"

Li Yucheng freezes, astonishment flashing in his dark, deep-set eyes.

She’d only said it as a hypothetical, but he was already afraid.

Ling Ruonian’s lips curl into a mocking smile. She shoves him away and retorts, "See? You never intended to stay with me for the long haul. You were just lonely for a while. Lin Jiannian died, and no matter how hard you tried, you could never be with her, so you could only seek comfort in me, her stand-in."

"But why should I go along with your selfishness?"

Coming soon 2: "Hibiscus Beyond the Tower"

In her senior year of high school, Xiang Fuzhan transfers from her hometown to a prestigious school in Wenshi. She stays with distant relatives, and that’s how she meets Lou Heting. They spend their days together under the same roof.

She listens to Uncle Lou and calls the striking young man "Big Brother." Lounging on the sofa as he plays video games, he has sharply defined features and a cold voice. "Don’t call me that."

Xiang Fuzhan takes the hint and stops bothering him. When they meet at school, she pretends not to know him.

She thinks they’ll make it through high school without crossing paths, but on the last night of their school trip, Lou Heting suddenly confesses to her.

She turns him down, and their relationship instantly freezes over.

*

The summer after the college entrance exam, the two of them make plans to attend Jing University together and secretly kiss in a stairwell. But Lou Heting’s mother catches them. A crack appears in the woman’s refined expression as sharp words spill from her mouth.

Xiang Fuzhan’s parents rush over from their hometown and take her back with them.

When the exam results come out, Xiang Fuzhan doesn’t apply to Jing University as they’d agreed. Instead, she takes a full scholarship and goes to college in Hong Kong City.

Lou Heting waits at Jing University for the person he wants to see, but she never comes. After asking around, he learns she’s in Hong Kong City. He flies there again and again, but the girl won’t even grant him a single meeting.

Until one day, Xiang Fuzhan takes the initiative and asks him to meet. He goes, filled with hope, only to hear her say, "I have a boyfriend. Please don’t come bother me again."

After that, he does as she wished and never sets foot in Hong Kong City again.

*

Years later, the two meet again at a party.

Lou Heting draws a truth question, and someone boldly asks him, "How did you break up with your first love?"

The man seated in the center leans back against the sofa and gives a derisive laugh. His sharp, dark eyes fix on the girl across from him as he replies carelessly, "She dumped me."

Xiang Fuzhan’s heart suddenly tightens.

Both leads are each other’s first love, and neither has been with anyone else.

A rekindled romance that begins on campus and continues in the city.

Theme: Finding your own path.