Warm-Water Tides

Next up: The Rain That Never Ended. Blurb at the end.

Beach lifeguard × executive manager at a five-star hotel

Cool and melancholy × outwardly gentle, inwardly unhinged, sharp-suited beauty

1,

Hotel C, a long-established five-star hotel on an island, had a private beach everyone envied.

Meng Ning, a beach lifeguard, wore a black athletic swimsuit. Her long, straight black hair was tied up behind her head, and a dark mandala tattoo adorned the back of her neck. When she stood gazing into the distance, she looked like an almost impossibly beautiful dolphin.

Unlike the other lifeguards, she always wore a string of Buddhist prayer beads around her wrist.

Someone asked, “Are you Buddhist?”

She smiled. “I am.”

2,

Everyone said Meng Ning wasn't cold, just distant.

On her first day as the newly appointed executive manager, Wen Zenian was paired with her in a party game at the annual dinner. They had to hold a balloon between them and move to a designated spot to win.

Meng Ning gave up immediately and downed three large glasses of absinthe instead.

The next day, during a beach inspection, Wen Zenian chose Meng Ning to accompany her.

Standing by a cliff, she smiled and said, “I'll jump when I count to three. Do you believe me? One, two...”

“Hey!”

Meng Ning could only grab the chain belt around her waist before Wen Zenian pulled them both backward into the sea.

When Meng Ning lifted her from the water, Wen Zenian's white uniform shirt was soaked through, clinging to her curves. She leaned against Meng Ning's shoulder. “See? I still got to hold you.”

“Wen Zenian, are you crazy?”

“Don't you know that better than anyone?” Wen Zenian smiled with graceful, alluring poise. “Life doesn't give you the chance to count to three.”

She leaned close to Meng Ning's ear. “And if you're going to pretend not to know me, shouldn't you also pretend to have forgotten that I'm afraid of water?”

3,

The night they slept together, Wen Zenian took Meng Ning's prayer beads off for the first time and gently stroked her wrist.

“Other than believers, what kind of people wear prayer beads all the time?”

“Liars who lie through their teeth, and hopeless souls.”

One-on-one romance, happy ending

Author's Weibo: @GuLaiYi

Next up: The Rain That Never Ended

Quiet, reserved piano tuner × glamorous pianist

1,

In their final year of high school,

Wen Ran and Xu Xiyan met for the first time. The eighteen-year-old girl had naturally curly hair and a face like an early-blooming rose. That was when Wen Ran first learned that allure had nothing to do with age or experience. Xu Xiyan only had to stand there to become the center of everyone's attention.

Xu Xiyan was a prodigy who had transferred in from Beicheng. From then on, Wen Ran began her quietest and loudest unrequited love. Their names would never be mentioned together by anyone.

2,

At twenty-six,

Wen Ran was an utterly ordinary piano tuner at a music shop. One day after work, a colleague chatted with her about the latest gossip: “Xu Xiyan came back to the country today. The airport was packed with her fans.”

Xu Xiyan had become an internationally acclaimed pianist and a household name. In decades, there had only been one pianist like her, with her extraordinary talent, rose-like beauty, and aloof nature.

Wen Ran pressed her lips together in a faint smile. “Mm.”

Wen Ran returned to her rental, a place of barely forty square meters, filled with warm, humid air. A woman in a bathrobe came up behind her, her pale wrist slipping around Wen Ran's waist. Her voice was soft and husky. “Ran, when are you finally going to make us public?”

“You're getting my clothes wet.” Wen Ran gently pushed her away. “And making us public isn't going to happen. When our two-year contract ends, we'll go our separate ways.”

*When the woman you once loved in secret becomes your secret lover

“When I was eighteen, the closest I ever came to her was when we stood together beneath the eaves of the practice room, sheltering from the evening sun shower. Half the sky was warm sunlight, half a torrential downpour. She fluttered her butterfly-wing lashes at me. It was a love that only existed in adolescence, lasting no longer than a sunset.”

One-on-one romance, happy ending

Theme: Know yourself