Spring Awakens Desire

[Please add my upcoming story, A Tender Captivity, to your reading list.]

[Please support the official version] Gentle, radiant pediatrician x sharp-tongued but soft-hearted attending physician

Yu Wen has been having the worst luck lately.

Her boyfriend cheated on her with the dean's daughter. The daughter was originally supposed to go to Tibet for a medical aid program, but now she's taken Yu Wen's cheating boyfriend and given Yu Wen her place on the assignment.

And that's not even the worst of it. Before leaving, Yu Wen sends a long email to Fu Xinshu, the chief of cardiac surgery already working there, asking what she should bring.

The reply is short and to the point: "Bring your brain."

Yu Wen: ...

Her colleagues list Fu's accomplishments: so exacting he's downright fussy, so hardworking he works through the night.

Seeing Yu Wen break into a sweat, a colleague reassures her, "That's just how Chief Fu is. You'll get used to it."

Is that even possible to get used to?

Whether she can or not, she boards the train west as planned.

#

After checking her ticket, she finds her seat is across from a handsome man.

He's dressed simply in jeans and a white shirt, holding a yellowed book. She can only see half his profile, with its sharp, defined lines.

His shirt sleeves are rolled up, revealing expensive cuff links that catch the sunlight coming through the train window. Their owner seems all the more like a refined, precious begonia blooming in early spring.

A passenger on the train suddenly suffers a heart attack. Yu Wen is about to rush over and administer first aid when the man reading beside her beats her to it.

His response is decisive, his chest compressions precise and rapid. He's clearly an experienced doctor.

In just a few minutes, the two of them work together to save the patient, and the whole train erupts in delighted applause.

Afterward, on the journey to Haicheng, friendly Yu Wen quickly gets to know the doctor sitting across from her.

She brings up Chief Fu, whom she's never met, and tells her new acquaintance all the bizarre stories she's heard about him, chatting and laughing as she does.

This stranger is something else. He keeps making excuses for Chief Fu. Yu Wen says, "It's a small world. You're not a friend of Chief Fu's, or maybe you're related?"

The man gives a faint smile and politely shakes his head. "No."

His refined denial makes Yu Wen sigh. "It would be great if you really were Chief Fu."

Just then, her colleague sends her a flurry of messages:

[Holy crap, Chief Fu is the dean's daughter's unattainable dream guy. She went to Tibet to pursue him, got nowhere, and took it out on you by stealing your boyfriend.]

[This Fu Xinshu is a young master from the wealthy Fu family of the capital. He's the first person in all of Asia to successfully perform a heart transplant on a newborn, and he's incredibly handsome.]

Yu Wen turns to look at the man across from her. He really is handsome!

But he can't be Fu, can he?

Things don't go as she hoped.

Three days later, the moment she steps into Haicheng Hospital, she locks eyes with the man from the train: those peach-blossom eyes, as cold as ice yet so full of life.

She hears someone greet him: "Chief Fu, you're back?"

Yu Wen: ???

Reading Guide:

The male lead's unrequited love finally comes true. A marriage first, love later. A sweet story about two doctors.

A Tender Captivity, please add it to your reading list.

Blurb:

With no makeup, Yue Wenye is more beautiful than the celebrities on the posters, yet she turns down every prestigious acting opportunity her family has lined up for her.

She only takes a few inconspicuous voice-acting jobs for games.

The Yue family repeatedly frowns at her lack of ambition.

Only her young uncle, Yue Yanting, has been playing with her since childhood and takes it all in stride, laughing and joking with her.

After Yue Yanting takes over as CEO of the group, rumors say he's a ruthless force in the business world. But at home, he'll still wrap himself in a blanket and stay up all night playing games with her.

#

At twenty, Yue Wenye's identity as a fake heiress is exposed at the engagement banquet arranged to fulfill a family alliance.

Overnight, she falls from being a rich young lady of a prominent Jiangcheng family to an unknown girl with nothing.

Yue Wenye doesn't regret it. She never wanted to try a marriage-first, love-later relationship with some arrogant, domineering CEO anyway.

It drizzles with autumn rain on the day she leaves the Yue family home.

The people who were her family yesterday are strangers today, seeing her as a thorn in the Yue family's side.

Even the aunts who once obeyed her every word now roll their eyes at her, watching closely in case she takes so much as a needle or thread from the Yue household.

In front of everyone, her adoptive mother puts an arm around her biological daughter and sneers at Yue Wenye. "Of course you're not one of the Yue family. You laze around all day. Let's see how you survive."

Yue Yanting cancels a shareholders' meeting at the last minute and rushes home. His little princess is like a solitary autumn water chestnut leaf in the fine rain, leaving him only her proud, resolute silhouette.

He grabs Yue Wenye by her pale wrist.

"Uncle..."

"What did you call me?"

Yue Wenye: ???

He never wanted to be her "uncle."

In the soft rain, water drips from Yue Yanting's forehead and clings to his lashes. Even his usually sparkling eyes seem streaked with tears.

"Here, you can keep this and play with it yourself, Mr. Yue." Yue Wenye gives him a mischievous smile and tosses him an old game controller she'd played with for years.

Mr. Yue?!

"Stay right there." His voice is low. This time, he's not teasing her. "You said it yourself."

??? Yue Wenye can't remember ever saying anything to this uncle of hers besides talking about games.

"I don't need you to be a peerless hero. I only want you to be my very own Great Sage Equal to Heaven."

A cool, unfamiliar yet familiar voice...

Only Yue Wenye recognizes it as the male voice from the voice-acting game she plays.

#

On their wedding night, Yue Yanting toys with the princess in his lap, turns off the game's background music, and insists she play through the game with him.

Yue Wenye can't fathom how much madness her once-gentle, refined uncle was hiding beneath his scholarly exterior.

Eight-year age gap

Theme: Compassion without borders through medical aid in Tibet