The Tide Rises in the Night Rain

[Age gap / Old flame rekindled / One-on-one / Buddha's heart, demon's hand. Powerful and influential x her own little jasmine]

After the turn of the millennium, a curious story spread through the turbulent city of Pingcheng.

A girl of unknown origins became a favored guest of Madam Song overnight.

The old lady's ninety-fifth birthday banquet was packed with distinguished guests. During the meal, a well-known tycoon, hoping to curry favor with Mr. Dai, asked the women in his party to show off their musical skills.

Madam Song reclined on a soft couch without even looking up. She beckoned to the jasmine girl beside her, who was massaging her legs. "Play 'Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe.'"

The girl lowered her eyes and walked obediently to the zither, settling down before it as her fingers danced across the strings.

As soon as "Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe" began, the whole room fell silent.

Before long, everyone knew that Mr. Dai had gained a close friend at Madam Song's birthday banquet.

Someone teased him, "When are you going to bring that little friend of yours along?"

A rare glimmer of light appeared in his normally calm eyes. With a faint, helpless smile, he said, "She doesn't like being called a little friend."

"Even you can't call her that?"

"No."

Mr. Dai, who had always kept a low profile and left no loose ends, spared no expense in that extraordinary period, building an amusement park just to make his beloved smile and make up for what she had missed out on as a child.

The supposedly ruthless and cold Mr. Dai gave every ounce of tenderness in his life to the sacred jasmine flower in his heart.

And yet, in the end, he was the one who secretly sent her to Hong Kong.

**

As the plane left Pingcheng, twenty thousand feet above the ground, Jasmine opened the letter delivered by his representative.

Two words were written in sharp, elegant strokes: "Take care."

A flattened red spider lily was tucked inside the letter.

A red spider lily, sent to a lover she could never reach.

The girl who had made a devout wish beneath the White Pagoda at Miaoyin Temple in Xicheng all those years ago still seemed to stand before him.

"I've heard wishes made at White Pagoda Temple are the most likely to come true. From now on, I'll come pray on the first day of every year and ask the Bodhisattva to keep you safe."

One night a year later, Jasmine, far away in England, received an international call.

Outside, thunder and rain raged. The voice on the other end was low and hoarse, yet familiar.

"Before the old lady died, she made me promise her two things. First, to protect you for the rest of your life. Second, to personally see you off when you got married."

"But I've changed my mind."

"She was the love he could never have, the desire of his entire life."

Note: Age gap of 10+ years.

Also: They are related by seniority, but not by blood. There will be plenty of emotional push and pull.

One-on-one romance.

Note: The time period and setting are fictional, though the world is modeled on Beijing.

The title is taken from Leslie Cheung's song "Someone With Heart."

"I loved you vaguely for a while, like a rising tide beneath the storm."

Synopsis archived October 29, 2023.

++++[I'm divider]++++

My next book will be "Don't Believe It" or "Moonlight in the Mountains." Please add them to your reading list ^_^

Synopsis for "Don't Believe It":

"We struggle to survive. We stand alone on the branches. At the end of time, we stand on the cliff between morality and ruin, fighting desperately."

"Do you believe that one look at her would be enough to make you fall in love?"

The man lightly tapped ash from his cigarette, wearing the air of someone who took life as a game. After a long pause, he said two words: "I don't."

Before meeting him, she had no idea he was Zhao Lushen, a famous name in Beijing's elite circles.

No one could imagine that, in the dry, sweltering summer ten years earlier, a girl with jade-bright skin and an ethereal beauty, wearing a spaghetti-strap dress, had sat bare-legged on his lap, her eyes curved in a smile as she hugged his neck and softly called him "big brother."

Xiangxiang never knew...

"Since her, no one else has been able to enter my heart."

Zhao Lushen had said those words himself when he was in his early twenties.

Bad boy x bad girl, five-year age gap, faux siblings, reunion after a long separation, healing

Synopsis for "Moonlight in the Mountains":

Looking back on the first twenty-eight years of her life, Simian could sum them up in one phrase: perfectly ordinary.

Her youth had neither a passionate romance worth sighing over nor an unbreakable friendship. Like most ordinary people, she had been tossed into the vast sea of humanity without leaving a trace.

Gradually, she grew used to, and came to love, cooking herself instant noodles piled high with vegetables and meatballs after a busy day at work, then turning on her phone to listen to the late-night radio program she often tuned in to, "Moonlight in the Mountains."

When the familiar, deep, magnetic voice came through the crackle of static and said, "Good evening, everyone. I'm Mountain Moon," Simian's heart, adrift all day, would miraculously settle, as if it had found a harbor.

Her family couldn't understand her choices. After studying medicine for eight years and finally establishing herself in the field, she had quit such a good job, preferring instead to take a job no one wanted at a funeral home: applying makeup to the dead.

Her mother didn't speak to her for half a year because of it. But Simian was stubborn. Once she decided to do something, no one could change her mind.

The year she quit was the most confused of Simian's life. One evening, she happened to see the golden statue of Guanyin at Puji Temple. At dawn the next day, she set off alone for Mount Putuo.

She was in a hurry that day. Incense smoke swirled, and worshippers came and went without pause. After paying her respects before the Guanyin statue in the main hall, she glanced back by chance and saw a young man standing beneath a tree.

He wore a black long gown and gazed up at an ancient cypress that towered into the clouds. The black collar, embroidered with a subtle pattern, hugged his long, pale neck. He looked stern and noble, with an air of refinement. Loneliness seemed to be part of him.

Someone like that didn't belong to the mundane world. With that thought, she left the main hall.

After paying her respects to Manjushri, she returned to the front hall, but the figure beneath the tree was gone.

Cold air arrived that day, and she left Putuo Island before the last ferry departed at five.

Half a month later, her family arranged a blind date for her. To her surprise, it was the man whose fleeting appearance had dazzled her that day.

The Bodhisattva's arrangements are the best. She believed it was fate.

*

"In this age of rampant materialism, I'm still waiting for a love that chooses me without hesitation."

"So I came."

*

When they first met, he said, "Hello, my name is Shen Gusi. Gusi means longing for home."

She said, "What a coincidence. My name is Simian."

Later, he said, "I'm Simian's Shen Gusi. Simian is my wife."

Shen Gusi didn't know that on the day they first met, what had made her recognize him first was his voice.

How could she mistake that deep, magnetic voice she listened to day and night?

--Maybe no one knows whether you can fall in love with someone because of their voice, but Simian's answer is certainly yes.

Reader's Tips:

1. Both leads are older, imperfect adults. They meet on a blind date and marry quickly.

2. Marriage takes a moment of impulse. If the two of you click, there's no need to think it over for too long. Believe that even if you've been adrift for half your life, the universe has already saved the best for you.

3. A gentle, simple, heartwarming, healing story about two people in love choosing one another. No schemes or misunderstandings, a semi-realistic urban fairy tale. A gift for anyone longing for warmth and healing.

A story about falling in love after marriage, an ordinary urban romance involving real place names. A short novel.

Theme: Stay positive