The Wind Blows Through Summer

Rebellious stray-dog childhood friend x gentle, sickly girl who takes life as it comes

★

Lin Yangxing had learned some biological fact from somewhere: abs are usually soft, and only show when tensed.

So when she barged into Qi Muye's room and saw his abs, still warm from the shower, she just thought he was showing off.

Qi Muye: "Fine, let's say I was tensing them for you. Happy now?"

Afterward, he cornered his strategist for advice.

"Why wasn't she moved at all? We're grown up now. Can't we keep some distance? Men and women shouldn't be too familiar!"

Strategist: [metro grandpa staring at phone]

"Case closed. She sees you like a pig hanging in a market. At most, she thinks, 'Oh, the pork looks good today.'"

"At least she said it looked good."

Strategist: "No. She might also think, 'Why are they selling meat from someone she knows at the market today? That's weird.'"

Qi Muye: ...

★

Things stayed that way until the day someone appeared out of nowhere.

Qi Muye really couldn't understand it. He was the one who'd been by Lin Yangxing's side the longest, so why could someone she'd known for just a few months come between them?

He'd even sincerely considered whether he should become the other man for love. If Lin Yangxing liked someone else, then so be it. She'd never explicitly turned him down.

Qi Muye had never doubted that Lin Yangxing might leave him, until that night, when he searched the whole city and finally found her by the lake.

At last, he bowed to fate. In despair, on the verge of hyperventilating, he fell to his knees in front of Lin Yangxing and gasped for breath. Like someone clutching at his last straw, he bit down on her wrist and called her name.

"Yaoyao, Yaoyao... please, just talk to me."

Youth is a poem of love and farewells.

# Childhood friends | He secretly loves her | 100% school life, a slow-burn story with a touch of ensemble cast and growing up

# No girl-on-girl rivalry, but intense competition between the guys (shh). They're all good kids, though. No villains; the kids are just busy struggling against adults and the future.

# Both leads are each other's first and only, one-on-one, happy ending

# Fictional setting

---- Forthcoming story: "Taming a Wildcat" ----

Eight-year age gap | Fostered-childhood story

Everyone in the capital knows that Huo Yucheng keeps an untamable cat at home.

And the wildcat herself has decided to run away from home once again.

★ Everyone thinks Huo Yucheng only took Cen Ling in because he had no other choice.

Cen Ling shrugged. "I don't know. Back then, he grabbed my hand and said I looked like I wanted to go with him."

Huo Yucheng lowered his eyes and smiled, but didn't deny it.

Back then, Cen Ling was like a cat with its claws out. Without a word, she scratched marks all over Huo Yucheng's face.

She said she'd be the death of him someday, but Huo Yucheng didn't listen.

Until the wildcat stood on the other side of a wall and said she was leaving.

For once, Huo Yucheng lost control before she did. His voice was hoarse. "Do whatever you want."

He stared at the grime in his palm and thought they were right.

Cats were simply impossible to tame.

★ The wildcat has secrets of her own.

Rather than suffer through unrequited love, Cen Ling decided to indulge herself and picked Song Zhe, a distant nephew who looked a little like Huo Yucheng.

But Huo Yucheng only scoffed. "I didn't take you in back then so you could call me Uncle."

Until one night, when she got drunk and let her exhaustion show. "Huo Yucheng, why do you always hate me?"

The wildcat slumped against Huo Yucheng, so light she barely seemed to weigh anything. She quietly laid down her secret and said, "I won't love you anymore."

For the first time, Huo Yucheng felt a cat's claw pierce his heart.

He didn't know how to answer the wildcat's question. He only knew he had no idea what gave him the right to say, "I love you."

Huo Yucheng didn't think his life achievements were anything to brag about. But if he had to name one, it would be this...

He spent eight years taming an untamable wildcat.

★ Huo Yucheng: "Can you stop calling me Uncle?"

Cen Ling: "Huh... You seemed pretty happy when I called you that last night."

And that was the first time Cen Ling realized that the saying about older men knowing how to treat you right was complete nonsense.

She didn't know if he knew how to treat her right, but he sure knew how to make it hurt.

Huo Yucheng wrapped an arm around her waist and rubbed the back of her neck.

Cen Ling gave in. She raised her head to kiss the corner of his mouth and called him Huo Yucheng, big brother, Uncle, and husband, one after another.

Tip:

A brainless, feel-good writing exercise. Cheesy and melodramatic, made for my own enjoyment. Writing this out of love!

Theme: Cherish life