The Clouds Part, but the Sun Remains Hidden

[Couple dynamic: older sister and younger brother, mutual salvation, two miserable people from the bottom of society supporting each other as they grow]

[A story set in a fictional small town in the 1990s | Beautiful, strong, tragic queen vs. the green-tea younger brother she took in]

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When Ruan Yunchen was fourteen, she gave all the savings she had secretly scraped together to a homeless man on the street corner, asking her to pretend to be their adoptive parent so she could get herself and Ruan Miaomiao out.

After that, she had only one yuan and two jiao left. She took it to the morning market to buy two cups of soy milk.

Ruan Yunchen carried Miaomiao on her back as Miaomiao sipped her soy milk. It dribbled from her mouth, fell to the ground, mixed with the muddy water, and rolled into a dark corner beneath the bridge.

A child lay curled up there, barely clinging to life.

Ruan Yunchen thought: If only she hadn't followed the soy milk with her eyes and looked under the bridge.

If she hadn't looked, she wouldn't have given her soy milk to that child.

If she hadn't given it to that child, maybe...

She could have died long ago, without a single thing to hold her back.

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Ruan Qiu knew perfectly well that he should stop.

But her gaze settled on him like that, carrying a hint of drunkenness yet still as clear as a thorn, making his throat tighten.

There was nothing in those eyes, only a faint stubbornness and expectation. That look made all his resistance seem absurd.

He heard his own voice, hoarse and barely recognizable: "Sis..."

One word rolled out of his throat, scorching his chest.

She had given him his life.

He could give her everything he had.

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[Warning: The growing-up process is full of bumps and is long and grueling]

- The heroine is beautiful, strong, and tragic; romance between an older woman and a younger man

- The heroine grows in the early stages, the family grows in the middle, and they work toward a better life together in the later stages. A slow simmer, extremely slow-burn romance

- Fictional modern setting and society, with differences from the real world. If you find any of the worldbuilding outrageous, repeat to yourself, "It's fictional, it's fictional, it's fictional," and "The author is a freeloader, the author is a freeloader, the author is a freeloader."

Theme: The clouds part and the sun shines through