Waiting for the Rain to Stop

Gentle, aloof photographer x lovesick teahouse owner

1.

When Ni Qing was eighteen, she fell in love with someone.

That summer, the wind swept across the open fields, and the scorching sun left its mark on her skin.

She ran from the south end of the city to the north. The blazing sunlight stung her eyes, and someone tripped her, spilling the takeout food she was carrying all over the ground.

She stood there, dazed and helpless, until a cool hand took the battered takeout box from her.

She looked up and saw the young man's indifferent profile.

He walked out from the shade of a tree, sunlight falling in fragments on his tousled hair. The light around him was soft and bright.

Like a savior who had suddenly appeared.

She secretly treasured her feelings for him.

2.

There was no one at Jiang University who hadn't heard of Ni Qing and Zhou Yuxing.

One was a court's star photographer, surrounded by rumors and supposedly neglecting his work. The other was the aloof, distant pride of the finance school.

At the school's anniversary celebration, the two walked in opposite directions onstage.

Everyone laughed that they couldn't get through half a sentence together without disagreeing.

Then, at a bonfire party, the cicadas sang through the summer night. Amid the crowd's commotion, someone took a photo of the two looking at each other from across the gathering.

Their silhouettes overlapped in the play of light and shadow. The deep affection in Zhou Yuxing's gaze was something no one had ever seen before.

3.

They reunited six years after Ni Qing asked him to break up.

Rain poured down. She stood alone at an intersection, holding a precarious umbrella.

She saw a black Bentley speed past, the man's profile behind the window cold and resolute.

The car turned at the intersection, going so fast it nearly hit the roadside barrier.

Zhou Yuxing got out without even opening an umbrella and walked over to her, his black suit streaked with water.

Ni Qing looked up and saw the pain in his eyes.

He took her hand. "We didn't first meet in college."

Ni Qing suddenly remembered that summer when she was sixteen, when the young man held an umbrella over her head.

It turned out that the rain had stopped all those years ago.

1. One-on-one romance, both leads are each other's first, no prior sexual partners

2. The heroine went through many difficult things in high school. Read with caution if this bothers you.

3. A familiar redemption story

Theme: Reject rumors