Everyone in their circle knew Cen Lu had a white moonlight in her heart.
When people asked, Cen Lu answered bluntly: "Yes. She's dead."
One day, Cen Lu attended a party hosted by Friend A.
Friend A: "You have to help me get her tonight. See the woman by the window? Her name's Tu Yin. I've never seen anyone look this sexy in a store-bought shirt."
Friend B covered her face and whispered, "She looks like she'd be really good at making people unable to close their legs."
Friend A: "It'll be hard. She's a germaphobe and so cold. I've known her for ages, and even if I accidentally brush against her, she has to go wash and disinfect her hands."
Is that so?
Remembering this woman with flushed cheeks, coming to kiss her of her own accord, Cen Lu sneered.
She didn't know whether Tu Yin was cold, but she had faked her death and changed her name. She was certainly good at playing with people's feelings.
Cen Lu carefully schemed to get Tu Yin into her hands.
The familiar place, the familiar reactions. Cen Lu was certain that the woman she'd spent night after night entwined with in City X four years ago was her.
When she deliberately did whatever she pleased, she asked again, "You really don't know me?"
Tu Yin gripped the bedsheets and gritted her teeth. "I don't know you."
Cen Lu pointed to an old bite mark on her shoulder.
"Then how did that get there? Should I bite you again and check the size?"
On the other side of the city's glittering peace lay a road of utter darkness. Tu Yin had walked it with gritted teeth for a very, very long time.
There, amid the blood-red certainty of death, she unexpectedly found a romance that made her heart flutter.
She had the first dream of her life, and the last.
[Blurb tentative, 2024.3.19]
Theme: A golden shield, forged in the heat of passion
