[Comments on my earlier works are closed]
The young general died for his country at an early age, and everyone mourned his loss.
Only Xu Fanli knew his death had been the result of a hidden plot.
He was the love of her life, the man she had secretly admired for years. Before she could confess, he was murdered.
In the end, his soldiers died with their grievances unresolved, too.
She would get justice for them!
*
As one powerful figure after another in the capital fell from grace, Xi Lingnian, a spoiled playboy, could not help looking at his newlywed wife.
She looked bewildered and delicate, speaking gently as she claimed not to understand.
But he had clearly seen that his wife was up to more than she let on.
*
After being forced to marry Xi Lingnian, Xu Fanxi wanted a divorce every moment of every day.
Then one day, she realized that this playboy... had the exact same face as the dead young general.
A stunning beauty who seems delicate but is actually scheming x a swaggering playboy on the surface, but a ruthless traitor beneath.
● Marriage first, love later / Spouses putting on an act / Both leads are sexually inexperienced / Happy ending
My upcoming novel, A Pomegranate Flame Rekindled, is a sweet secret-crush story set in high school under China's new college entrance exam system. Please add it to your collection!
A pure-hearted, socially anxious introverted high school girl with a lot of pent-up resentment x a cheeky boy with a youthful charm
After her parents had argued for days on end, Lin Liuxi spent the whole night awake. No one remembered it was her birthday.
During evening study hall, she grew drowsy.
Then the whole school lost power. She woke to the sound of cheering, and after putting on her backpack, she noticed the boy in the row behind her had not left.
They shared the same birthday.
The boy's desk was piled high with gifts, and she could not help envying him.
Lin Liuxi accidentally knocked over his pencil case. Blushing, she picked it up, with the frosting from his birthday cake sticking to the ends of her hair, sweet and strangely comforting.
Xie Zhaonian leaned back in his chair, lazily cutting the cake. He glanced at her flustered face. "Want some?"
*
In her high school diary, Lin Liuxi was always more resentful than a ghost.
"Studying is like going to a funeral. I am now a corpse."
"Math, I hate you! I will hate you forever! Screw you, Golden Sun. I'm done studying!"
"Yande Yingcai's mock exam! Exam writers, do you even know what this answer is babbling about?"
"Evening study hall on the Mid-Autumn Festival? Grade-level office, are you trying to get yourselves killed?"
But one day, her diary came to a stop on a line from a song:
Flowers, the sun, rain.
The final words, "and you," stayed in her heart like a rotten sour plum.
Crush, as a noun, means a brief, passionate, yet shy love.
He was famous for being irreverent and dazzlingly talented, and the entire grade-level office both loved and hated him.
While Lin Liuxi was still suffering over holiday tutoring, he had gone to report the school.
As Xie Zhaonian emerged from the grade-level office, surrounded by admirers, Lin Liuxi and her classmates leaned out the window to watch.
Amid cheers from the entire grade, she opened her eyes wide. The male lead of her story had finally taken shape.
*
After the college entrance exam, the two went their separate ways. Three years later, Lin Liuxi heard that Xie Zhaonian had someone and accepted it.
Until one day, when her mother was cleaning her room and found a love letter three years too late, tucked inside her high school textbook.
It was signed on the night of their last evening study hall. Everyone had run into the corridor to shout, and students on the upper floors began singing. It was pure pandemonium.
Lin Liuxi and her friend linked arms and squeezed through the crowd, exchanging a smile. The moon was so round.
Amid a sky full of flying exam papers, the boy watched her through the window and put a full stop on the page.
Their youth had ended, too.
Could a broken relationship, full of regrets, ever be mended with time?
"Flowers, the sun, rain, and you."
"I wrote my longing for you with pen and paper."
--Pharaoh, "Flowers, the Sun, the Rainbow, You"
● Rekindled love / Mutual secret crush, sweet romance / Happy ending. The male lead's partner is a misunderstanding.
● About the college entrance exam, crushes, dreams, family, and an ensemble cast. Slow burn.
● China's new college entrance exam system (3+2+1 format), with two subjects graded on a curve.
● Yande Yingcai (a pun on the name), Sanxiang, Peipei Education, and Golden Sun, which appear in the story, are mock exam providers, listed from easiest to hardest. The T8 mock exam (the eight-province joint exam) appears in the final year of high school.
● The definition of "crush" comes from Baidu.
● The female lead is one year younger than the male lead, and they share the same birthday. The school portion takes up a very large part of the novel. They are both over eighteen and have finished the college entrance exam when they get together.
Theme: Even small loves can encompass the nation
