Quiet Spring

The day Xie Jingchun married Yao Shu, a spring rain fell over the capital, Chu, all night.

Alone in the bridal chamber, she listened to the rain dripping from the eaves until evening fell and the red candles burned out.

Yao Shu was wanton, lustful, uneducated, and ruthless. Everyone hated him.

Xie Jingchun disliked Yao Shu in the daytime, but she loved the man who lifted the curtain and came to her on that lonely spring night.

Beneath his deep shadow, his profile was so silent and lonely.

He seemed just like the boy who had saved her life when she was fifteen, still as he had been in those old days, not yet worn beyond recognition by time. Even if a mountain collapsed, he would stand up without hesitation to hold it back for her.

Without a word, he turned his face away, refusing to look at her tearful eyes.

Since she was fifteen, she had sworn to protect him.

Even if he had become a vile, despicable, pitiful man who felt like a stranger to her.

Later, on a silent spring night as torrential rain poured down, she gripped the man's clothes so tightly her fingers turned white.

She raised her head and said through her sobs:

"It was you. It was you... It was always you, wasn't it?"

He remained motionless, jaw clenched, Adam's apple bobbing as he balled his fists. The veins on his forehead bulged.

As if he wanted to flee and disappear into the spring rain.

And yet as if he wanted to reach out and hold her tight, weeping soundlessly just as he had on that night when he was fifteen, the night he couldn't tell her his real name.

1. The title and blurb may still change.

2. Happy ending.

Premise: Keep your eyes open so you don't mistake one person for another