When He Arrived, the Begonias Were Thin with Spring

Pre-publication: "Snow Embroidered in Years to Come"

Blurb for "When He Came, the Begonias Were Thin with Spring":

#

To the older generation, Ye Zaiyi had always seemed obedient and docile.

Her grandfather, Ye Xun, told her to study medicine, so she did.

Ye Xun told her to return to her hometown and take charge of the acupuncture clinic. After graduating from Peking University's graduate program, she returned and earned a modest salary at the clinic that the Ye family had run for generations.

But the second time Luo Yi met her, he saw it clearly: the sharpness hidden deep in the eyes of this woman who had grown up amid the misty rains of Jiangnan.

#

When the Luo family proposed a match to the Ye family, they proposed Luo Yu: the chairman of Nanzhou Group's grandson, Luo Yi's nephew, and the younger generation's favorite of the Luo elders.

But Luo Yu fled from the wedding and flew abroad.

It was at this turning point that Luo Yi spoke to her for the first time.

*

That day, outside the front veranda of the Luo family's ancestral home, the pillars and begonia leaves concealed half the man's profile.

Ye Zaiyi's gaze fell on the hem of his snow-white robe as she listened to every word he said.

His voice was restrained, like winter snow buried deep for an entire season.

She recalled the rumors about him: among the Luo family scions, he was the most handsome, and also the least favored.

Rather than say he was not favored, it would be more accurate to say he was the hardest to control.

She thought that even though he was wearing a long robe at his elders' request, it could not hide his rebellious nature...

#

This was Luo Yi's second time seeing Ye Zaiyi, but Ye Zaiyi was meeting him for the first time.

He had come to ask her something.

She knew he was trying to give the elders of both families an explanation and clean up the mess.

As it happened, she too needed to agree to marry into the Luo family to keep Ye Xun in check.

*

At first, Ye Zaiyi thought this was simply a marriage of convenience.

But when she realized the marriage was probably nearing its end, she tentatively asked him, "Mr. Luo, can we go our separate ways now...?"

To her astonishment, she saw the way Luo Yi was looking at her.

It was just like the way she looked at the begonias in the corner...

Adoring, tender, compassionate, and careful...

A "pretends to be obedient" young woman with a hidden edge x a "by-the-book" great rebel

Acupuncture doctor x wealthy heir

* Marriage first, love later. The male lead is three years older.

* Each other's first love, one-on-one, happy ending.

* The setting is very loosely based on reality. Important: this is not a medical explainer. It's a romance told from the female lead's perspective, focused on everyday life, not medical education.

* No real-life inspiration.

I'm terrible at writing blurbs. Thanks for reading this far.

Blurb submitted to my editor, screenshot saved (2023-08-11)

Second submission (2023-08-15)

Pre-publication: "Snow Embroidered in Years to Come"

#

At twenty-five, Fang Xuexue is the owner of a small workshop whose only employee is herself.

Since her mother's death, she has been trapped here for five years, through both joy and sorrow.

The last inheritor of the Hai embroidery tradition, she withdrew from social life, gave up her studies, and took over the small workshop run by the Fang family for generations.

Until one day, she received a big order: a costume called "Hall of Mountains and Seas," designed at the request of a businessman from the capital.

That day, she saw a name on the opera cast list: Guan Du.

The love she had lost in her youth arrived with the snowstorms of this winter.

Once again, she lost her way home.

#

Her cousin's young daughter came to stay with her after finishing the college entrance exams.

The girl asked, "Cousin, when you were my age, did you have someone you liked? Was he exceptional?"

"Yes. He was exceptional."

He was the ninth-generation inheritor of the Feiyuan school, elegant and refined, with features like a painting.

The girl's eyes lit up. "Did you become better for his sake?"

Fang Xuexue was silent for a moment, then smiled and said, "If I wanted to make you feel better, I should say yes. But unfortunately, not every girl who has ever admired an exceptional young man becomes more outstanding and dazzling for his sake. I didn't have that kind of determination or ability, so I simply lived quietly and ordinarily, day after peaceful, uneventful day."

The girl burst into tears. "So it's a bad ending after all."

At that moment, the person standing outside the door drew back the hand he had been about to raise to ring the bell.

#

It was snowing heavily that day, and the new opera was in rehearsal.

Onstage, Guan Du wore a blue robe.

He turned his head and glanced over, then suddenly saw a woman in gray-green work clothes standing at the theater entrance.

He leapt down from the high platform and sprinted toward her under the astonished gaze of everyone present.

He pressed her against the theater railing. Beyond it, snow swirled thickly. The man's phoenix eyes seemed half-drunk, and his thin lips brushed her ear as he spoke, his voice tinged with anger: "...Fang Xuexue, who was the person you admired when you were young?"

Traditional arts inheritor x opera performer

One-on-one, each other's first love, happy ending

Theme: The music of youth