[Composed, chaste man in power x radiant, gentle guqin player]
Age gap | Beijing elite circle | Forbidden tension | The powerful man bows his head | SC
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Ming Jin first met Huo Yinli on the day she arrived at the capital's airport.
She'd heard that her fiancé, whom she'd never met, would come to pick her up. Through a summer downpour in the capital, a long black Maybach Pullman rolled toward her, imposing and forbidding. Ming Jin was caught by the man's half-lidded eyes, deep and inscrutable.
His cool detachment blurred into the vast curtain of rain. Though he sat calmly inside the car, he seemed to be enthroned high above, on a celestial terrace.
The pampered young lady, whose life had gone smoothly for eighteen years, secretly curled her lips into a smile. Then the man parted his thin lips and introduced himself:
“Huo Yinli.”
The young master of the Huo family, the one her family had warned her “never, ever to provoke or offend,” and the uniquely prestigious, untouchable figure at the very top of the social circle.
Her fiancé's... older brother.
Her sweet smile froze on her face, like a white camellia knocked down by the rain.
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A heart stirs like the wind, but there's no time to correct the mistake.
Ming Jin slowly makes her move, like a cat cautiously reaching out a paw.
But she doesn't know that Huo Yinli sits in his mansion, watching the girl who had been cuddling in his palm the night before walk arm in arm with his cousin, smiling shyly...
The fragrant tassels of her qipao brush past the back of his hand, as soft as falling snow.
The taut veins and bones in his hand reveal just how hard he is struggling to hold back.
[Little Scene]
A video from the North American Guqin Association goes viral around the world. A beauty's profile, accompanied by ancient, haunting guqin music, instantly captures audiences everywhere.
Only the young masters at the very top of the social circle know that the guqin in their sister-in-law's hands is a thousand-year-old treasure someone bought at auction for a nine-figure sum.
The old paulownia wood body is covered in deep and pale ice-crack patterns, and bears a new name, carved by his own hand, stroke by stroke:
“Phoenix Seeks Its Mate.”
When Huo Yinli tells the story, he wears a smile that makes your teeth ache. “The first piece the young lady played for me was Phoenix Seeks Its Mate. Today, it's my turn to beg her.”
That night, Ming Jin glares at him through a veil of clear tears, her eyes red:
“You don't keep your word! So which one of us is begging whom?”
* Banban is the female lead's pet name, and another name for the qilin.
Blurb written 2023.8
Theme: Strive tirelessly.
