The Blue Sparrow

Blue Sparrow is no oddity. He deserves an ocean of his own.

An old friend Kang Mingye had once shared an ambiguous relationship with as a boy died. A car accident left behind only a seventeen-year-old son, an illegitimate child the family refused to acknowledge.

Kang Mingye first met Blue Sparrow at his friend’s funeral.

Kang Mingye attended in his capacity as chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. The moment he appeared, he became the center of attention. Only Blue Sparrow looked at him just once, from beginning to end.

The tall, slender boy wore a black suit that was tight at the waist. Everyone else was crying, but he kept his eyes fixed on the memorial portrait on the wall, his gaze dark and still. The Lan family hurled a scalding teacup at his back and cursed him loudly, saying he was as disgusting as his shameless, vile mother. Yet he stood there with his head held high, as if he couldn't hear a thing.

His neck was long and elegant, his figure graceful. Standing there, he was strikingly beautiful, like a delicate, lonely bird.

Later, Kang Mingye learned he was the ballet company’s principal male dancer. His birth mother had once been a dancer, too, but she later died by suicide.

Kang Mingye wanted to shelter the boy under his name for the time being, as an uncle. But the boy splashed cold tea in his face. “You’ve always been in love with my dad. Don’t think I don’t know.”

The second time Kang Mingye saw Blue Sparrow was in his spacious office.

Blue Sparrow was twenty-three now, grown into a beauty touched by heavenly light. He asked, “Uncle, are you free tonight?”

Kang Mingye knew why he had come.

Blue Sparrow was on tour with the ballet company. Backstage, he had broken three of the theater manager’s ribs. The incident had spread all over Pingjiang City, and the manager had vowed to make sure he would never dance again.

Only Kang Mingye, the Chamber of Commerce chairman, could help him.

“I’m free.”

“Actually, I look a lot like my father, Uncle.”

[Reader’s Guide]

1. Older man as the pursuer. You could call them evenly matched, just strong in different ways.

2. Kang Mingye is thirteen years older than Blue Sparrow. When Blue Sparrow was seventeen, Uncle Kang was thirty. When Blue Sparrow was twenty-three, Uncle Kang was thirty-six. He really is an older man.

3. A wealthy-family stand-in trope. The recipient approaches the pursuer with an ulterior motive, but in the end they find their way to one another and both fall into a whirlpool of feelings they can't escape.

4. This is a relationship-focused story, with plenty of life's hardships. It isn't a wish-fulfillment story, but the romance isn't angsty. After all, it's fiction, not real life. Please discuss rationally and don't make personal attacks.

Theme: Education isn't about filling a bucket with water, but about lighting a fire.