Listening to Hanshan

[Major Spoiler Warning: From Chapter 75 onward, the bonus chapters are about the protagonist's bad ending. Subscribe at your own discretion!]

[The complete novel costs only as much as a cup of milk tea. Thank you, sweetheart, for supporting the official release! My next book, Summer Without Rain, is open for follows, OvO~]

■ Glamorous, bold orphan from a mountain town × distinguished, reserved big shot from Beijing's elite

■ Love at first sight | Adoption story | Long-planned scheme | Putting self-interest first | Rekindled love

"1"

The first time Mai Sui met Xie Fengsheng was in a remote, underdeveloped mountain town.

Before then, Mai Sui had never truly seen the difference between heaven and earth.

He stood there, eyes lowered nonchalantly as he played with a folding knife in his hand, looking utterly untouchable.

If she wanted to leave the mountains, she had to seize every opportunity she could use.

A roof caved in by torrential rain, a conveniently timed bout of feigned illness...

As the group of visitors from afar was about to head back, Xie Fengsheng said what she had hoped to hear: "Mai Sui, come with me."

Their relationship was a transaction of mutual benefit.

They came together for profit and would part when it ran out. Perhaps that would have been the best ending.

But after the play Thunderstorm ended that night, Mai Sui turned her back to him and could only think how fierce the storm was.

They met again on the eve of her twenty-sixth birthday. A Maybach with a familiar license plate pulled up in front of the flower shop.

Someone handed her several sunflowers in full bloom in the depths of winter, along with a secret agreement.

He said, "Mai Sui, marry me."

She agreed.

"2"

As the head of the Xie family, Xie Fengsheng was disciplined and courteous, with an iron-fisted approach. He wore a compassionate expression in public and in private, and no one had ever seen him abandon his principles.

Until one day, Xie Fengsheng sat opposite his friend Cen Huisong, his expression calm as he said something astonishing: "Draft the prenuptial agreement as we just discussed. The sooner, the better. I need it urgently."

Cen Huisong tapped the table with a bent knuckle. "As your friend and your lawyer, I have to remind you: once you sign this agreement, if things go badly between you two and you end up in court, no one can guarantee they'll win the case for you."

Xie Fengsheng suddenly smiled. "That won't happen. I'm giving it to her willingly."

"3"

After they married, Mai Sui diligently played the role of the perfect ornament, never asking about his schedule or talking about their feelings.

Until one stormy night, she was admitted to the hospital with acute gastritis, and Xie Fengsheng drove back from a neighboring city.

She asked in surprise, "How did you know I was here?"

Xie Fengsheng asked in return, "Why didn't you call me?"

Mai Sui fell silent for a while, then lowered her eyes and murmured, "Aren't we in a marriage of convenience?"

"At three thirty in the morning, you noticed my WeChat step count had gone up by two thousand five hundred.

We don't say we love each other. We only draw closer and embrace in the dark."

"4"

Later, on the garden terrace on the second floor of a villa in Beijing's suburbs,

Mai Sui leaned against the wall and looked up at the man standing before her. "I learned a sentence in German. I want to say it to you."

As she stalled, saying she couldn't remember it, Xie Fengsheng looked at her with a faint smile. Love surged in his deep eyes. "I'm not in a hurry. Take your time."

When the long, distant chimes of Hanshan Temple reached her ears, Mai Sui gazed into his eyes.

"Alles gute zum geburtstag, mein messias."

Happy birthday, my savior.

"Reading Guide":

■ This is not a fluffy romance. The emotional journey broadly goes: angst, sweetness, angst, a little sweetness, then bitterness. The main story has a happy ending, but there will be bonus chapters with a bad-ending direction for the protagonists. [Major Spoiler Warning]

■ Both leads are sexually inexperienced. Neither is a perfect character, but they are devoted to each other. The characters are not simply good or evil.

■ The locations are fictional, and the subject matter, setting, and plot have no connection to reality. For leisure reading only.

Coming soon: Don't Fall for Me [A mutual crush everyone in class knows about]

In a dimly lit corridor,

Huang Fusu hugged the stack of test papers she'd just collected and slowly made her way to the teachers' office.

Following behind her was her crush, Liang Qingyan.

After a long silence, she finally spoke. "Liang Qingyan, maybe we shouldn't sit together next time they change our seats."

"...Oh."

Three days later,

the boy who had always sat to her left silently cleared everything off his desk.

He just... looked a little pitiful.

She hesitated, wondering whether she should take back what she'd suggested, but then saw him sling a bag over one shoulder, carry his school uniform jacket in one hand, and plop down in the seat behind her.

Huang Fusu: "..."

"What are you looking at? You said you didn't want me sitting next to you. You never said I couldn't sit behind you." Beneath the desk, he propped his foot against the leg of her chair. "Put your head down and study."

*

Two years later, at the graduation ceremony for the high school division of Lingbei No. 1 High School,

Huang Fusu took the stage as the outstanding student representative and read aloud the words written on the first page of her diary:

"I got the top student in our grade, and I got the former top student, too."

Theme: Break free of your cage and find the light of dawn.