Kiss the Kite

[Publication updates on Weibo: @SanShangXingJuanEr. My next novel, "Don’t Listen to the Rain", is open for follows. Please add it to your reading list QAQ]

[Unrequited love / Reunited after a breakup / From school days to adulthood]

A seemingly sweet but secretly calculating male “green tea” × a gentle, stubborn woman

Before they became lovers, Cheng Wuyi’s feelings for Jing Zheng were actually jealousy.

That bright, easygoing boy was born with an enviable knack for dealing with people. He was the model student everyone adored, and could get the things Cheng Wuyi desperately wanted with barely any effort.

So on New Year’s Eve, she would call him alone and ask him to keep her company.

She would casually bring up her university choices and ask him to guess.

She would deliberately show him the red marks from a burn on her back and her delicate skin,

just to make him worry about her.

Because she couldn’t stand anyone being so lucky.

-

When they met again years later,

Cheng Wuyi once saw Jing Zheng sitting in a hospital corridor, helping a little girl make a flower out of yarn.

The man’s skin was pale with an unhealthy pallor, making the kite tattoo on his wrist stand out even more.

He had never been a model student, and he had never been lucky.

The little girl asked Jing Zheng, “Do you have someone you like, big brother?”

Jing Zheng didn’t answer. He just looked up, and his gaze met Cheng Wuyi’s.

And Cheng Wuyi thought again of that rainy night.

On that wild spring night, the rain had knocked countless yellow champaca blossoms from the trees.

The young man dropped every pretense, his eyelashes trembling as he demanded fiercely, “You said you liked me. Was it true?”

But before she could answer, he held her breath in a trembling embrace and muttered to himself

“I’ll take it, even if it’s a lie.”

-

A little kite (the male lead) × the string that holds it

* Primarily an urban romance; both leads are virgins, with a happy ending.

* Their relationship begins after university. There are no intimate scenes before they’re adults.

* The leads have never been on the same household register.

[Upcoming urban romance, "Don’t Listen to the Rain". A chase-your-wife story. Please add it to your reading list]

“Afterward, Wen Tingyu hated rainy days most of all.”

On the rainy day Wen Tingyu became principal dancer of her troupe, her boyfriend invited a crowd to celebrate.

Everyone was having a good time when someone came over and urged Wen Tingyu to drink.

She was on her period and about to refuse, when her boyfriend quietly ordered, “Come on, don’t spoil everyone’s fun.”

As Wen Tingyu hesitated, a strange man in the corner spoke in a cool, even voice.

His fringe was slightly damp, and he was putting away a long black umbrella. “Wen Tingyu, right? Didn’t I tell you at the hospital this afternoon not to drink for a week?”

But the two of them had never actually met.

Later, Wen Tingyu learned that the kind gentleman who’d spoken up for her was Cen Lin, the Cen family heir who had returned from medical school.

The next time she saw Cen Lin was on the eve of the premiere of her ballet.

Wen Tingyu, the lead dancer, accidentally fell down the stairs.

Sitting in a wheelchair, Wen Tingyu watched the understudy shine onstage. She also watched the understudy and her boyfriend brazenly touch and kiss in the dressing room.

The rain was pouring. After the premiere, Wen Tingyu went to the hospital for X-rays in a sorry state, and Cen Lin was the doctor on duty.

The man carefully bandaged her wound, then asked, “Want revenge?”

Wen Tingyu asked, “How?”

Cen Lin took off his gloves and answered indifferently, “Want to try dating me?”

-

Before long, Wen Tingyu’s ex-boyfriend’s family fell into financial trouble and was acquired by the Cen family.

Wen Tingyu thought Cen Lin had done it for her.

She fell deeper and deeper.

The man saw how she felt, but only asked in return, “Did I lead you on? Didn’t I make it perfectly clear that I can’t love you?*”

On another rainy night, in a cemetery, she saw Cen Lin holding her ex-boyfriend’s head down and making him bow before a gravestone.

It turned out that one of the many girlfriends of Wen Tingyu’s playboy ex-boyfriend had been Cen Lin’s one true love.

And she was dead, which made her the most powerful kind of lost love.

Heartbroken, Wen Tingyu chose to leave.

At a masquerade ball, she unexpectedly ran into Cen Lin.

With an indifferent expression, she brushed past him, but the man seized her wrist.

Cen Lin removed the swan mask from his face. “Miss Wen, how are you going to thank me for dealing with your ex?”

Wen Tingyu gave a cold laugh. “We were just using each other. Don’t make me laugh, Mr. Cen.”

Wen Tingyu didn’t know

After she left, the man stood before a whole wall of ballet slippers and listened to the rain all night.

“When I said I couldn’t love you, I was talking to myself. I tried to make myself obey, but I still fell helplessly in love with you.”

A scoundrel’s sincere heart × a young swan

Theme: Love is a pure attraction and a promise to stay.