Redeeming the Shattered Pieces

Scheming Devoted Lover x Radiant Flirt, Reconciliation After a Breakup, Healing Romance, Cocky Hero and Heroine Lu Jingyao comes from an excellent family and has a face to match. When he doesn’t smile, his features are cool and severe; when he does, he looks roguish and carefree. He seems like he doesn’t care much about anything. Yet this heaven-blessed young man gives everything he has to one person alone. Ying Sui is cold by nature, her delicate, peach-blossom eyes always revealing how little she cares about anything. She’s not exactly sweet-tempered, either. She has endured her mother’s cold contempt and abandonment, cruel attacks for no reason, and the departure of friends and family. She thought her life would end just as it had been destined to, according to the meaning her mother gave her name. If her mother hadn’t saved herself, Ying Sui would have been crushed and torn apart by surgical forceps long ago. She had probably never imagined she would meet Lu Jingyao, much less that after she transferred schools, the two of them would form an unbreakable bond. High mountains, frigid snow, and a precipitous summit. Alone, she went to pay her respects to a deceased friend. When she turned around, he was standing behind her, watching over her and protecting her. Love swelled uncontrollably in her cold heart, growing vast and fierce. She wanted to get closer to him and put her self-destructive ways behind her. But hardship came relentlessly, and after graduation, beneath the setting sun, she gave him the most insincere sneer she could manage: “Lu Jingyao, I was just having fun. How did you actually fall for it?” They had lived through every season together on West Street, only to drift apart in their second summer. They meet again in a blizzard, with the roads closed. Wearing a black coat, Ying Sui gets out of the car, planning to have a cigarette. Through the swirling smoke, she spots a familiar figure in the distance, tall and straight-backed, with a carefree air. A petite young woman stands beside him. They look very close as they talk. She stares dazedly at the man she hasn’t seen in years. When Lu Jingyao turns his head, their eyes meet. But he gives her only a brief, indifferent glance before turning back to talk to the woman beside him. The cigarette burns down to the filter and scorches her fingertip. Ying Sui feels nothing. Only a dull ache in her chest, tight and swollen, as if an invisible hand were squeezing her heart. She knows she has no right to regret anything, but that night she still drinks until she’s utterly drunk, then deletes the photos of them together she had treasured in her album. After she passes out, Lu Jingyao rises from a corner she never noticed and carries her away. Amid the noise, all he hears is her heartfelt confession, thick with drunkenness: “Lu Jingyao, I really miss you so much.” Years ago, after saying those words that wounded his pride, she had gone drinking, too. Ying Sui doesn’t know he was there that day, either. Her drunken words, “Lu Jingyao, I like you,” became the only thing that gave him the courage to wait for her all those years. Lu Jingyao is Ying Sui’s salvation. As she falls into the abyss, he catches her, then lifts her up with his own hands, staying by her side as they watch the sunrise gild the mountains, the skies clear after the rain, and the beautiful world beyond the abyss. But who could have known that as they stood together beneath the blizzard, their heads dusted white, fate had already silently tied them together long before, with a bond that could never be broken? She was the one who saved him first. Reader notes: 1. The hero and heroine are each other’s one and only. No exes, and the hero has no ambiguous relationship with anyone else (that girl is not a love interest). 2. A love story between a cocky hero and a cocky heroine: a bright little fox and a lovestruck old fox. 3. The heroine eventually changes her name to “Ying Sui,” meaning “may everything go smoothly.” In the end, she finds work she loves and the courage to run toward the person she loves. “Hardship once hammered at the soul in silence. Thankfully, love is the softest thing, yet also an unbreakable suit of armor. After that, even the nights spent walking alone no longer make you afraid.” I hope every girl can become the leading lady of her own life. 4. Here’s the blurb for a completed novel: The Wilds of Gardenia: Cen Ye x Yun Zhi (headstrong, unruly special operations captain x gentle, cool photographer) Cen Ye was a troublemaker from childhood, with a harsh temper and a roguish, wicked streak. Then he fell for someone clean-hearted and gentle, with a hint of stubbornness. Cen Ye loved Yun Zhi so much that he tread carefully, afraid his own rough edges might taint her. He never pursued her, but Yun Zhi pursued him. They still broke up in the end. It was amicable. Neither wanted the other to compromise for their sake. They made a promise to meet again in three years. But Cen Ye never showed. Yun Zhi never imagined she would reunite with Cen Ye in the midst of a war. The roguish boy from her memories overlapped with the man before her, dressed in a dark green uniform, his features stern. He rescued her from danger. He led her out of the chaos of war and put her on a plane evacuating overseas Chinese. Yet neither of them said a word about their past. At last, just before she left, Cen Ye opened his mouth to explain. “Yun Zhi, back then…” Yun Zhi cut him off. “Captain Cen, why don’t you tell me when you get back? I’ll be waiting for you in Yibei. I want an explanation.” Cen Ye curled his lips in a casual smile, but didn’t reply. They both knew how dangerous his mission was. Yet, without needing to say it, they kept their feelings to themselves and said nothing more. They stubbornly held each other’s gaze, as if they meant to keep looking until the end of their lives. A bullet grazed Cen Ye’s heart. He could barely hold on. But then he thought of how he still hadn’t explained things to Yun Zhi. He hadn’t told her he loved her, that he loved her so much. Two months later. Yun Zhi watched the news report announcing the completion of the evacuation over and over. She could almost recite it by heart. It had been over for so long. Why hadn’t he come? Why hadn’t he come back this time, either? At a temple. “Who are you praying for?” Her half-brother, Yun Qi, had thought his sister wouldn’t believe in this sort of thing. “A bastard,” Yun Zhi said coldly. That was what she said, but she knelt so devoutly. As soon as Cen Ye recovered, his grandmother dragged him to the temple to give thanks for her answered prayers. Through the curling incense smoke, he saw Yun Zhi, the woman who had occupied his thoughts all along. Beneath a thousand-year-old ginkgo tree, their eyes met. But neither moved, both as stubborn as they had been when they parted. So he had come back. Yun Zhi had thought he still hadn’t returned, which was why she had come to pray for him. He simply didn’t want to come find her. Just like that year. So she took her brother’s hand. “A Qi, let’s go.” Yun Qi nodded without a word. Looking at the tall, proud, utterly indifferent man across from them, he immediately realized this was the bastard his sister had mentioned. Cen Ye stared at her, feeling his heart begin to ache again. He had already recovered. Why did it still hurt? In the courtyard behind the temple, Cen Ye found her. Just as she was about to walk past him, he grabbed her wrist. “This is a holy Buddhist site. Isn’t this inappropriate?” Yun Zhi looked at him, cool and composed. “Are you dating someone?” “Captain Cen, you’re awfully nosy.” “Break up with him.” Yun Zhi thought it was ridiculous and couldn’t even be bothered to answer. “You don’t love him.” “And how would you know?” “Because I know what Yun Zhi looks like when she loves someone.” That year, the way you looked at me, those eyes brimming with love, outshone the vastness of the universe. “People change. I’m not the girl I was at eighteen or nineteen anymore.” “No. My A Zhi will never change.” Core theme: A story of salvation