Damp Tide

Romance-focused * mutual pining * emotional deficiency disorder

“Qin Ge, I think I know what I like. I like rainy days. On rainy days, the sun is as mild as a fish’s eye. My heart gets soaked in that gaze, as if waiting for a damp, mighty tide that will never come.”

Chu Minshi × Qin Ge

Chu Minshi was the top scorer in his province on the college entrance exam, a master’s student in law at X University, and passed the bar exam on his first try with the highest grades in his entire school. Fluent in four languages, he had professors nearly coming to blows over who would get him as a student. He became a legend: that year, no one dared to choose the same advisor as him.

Apart from a personality so cold it could seem unreasonable, he was the best at everything.

Apart from a personality so cold it could seem unreasonable.

That unreasonableness came fully to the fore when he graduated and resolutely chose to become a criminal defense lawyer, taking only cases for poor people who couldn’t afford legal fees.

From being renowned in the profession to being “renowned in the profession,” everyone distanced themselves from him. He was the only one who kept going.

On his thirtieth birthday, he met that person. The person he had imagined for more than a decade.

Unfortunately, an iron-barred window stood between them.

That face was still as sharp and bold as it had been at seventeen, its beauty fierce and untamed, like a wild leopard from a nature documentary.

When he was seventeen, that person cornered him in a school bathroom and said, “You’re an idiot.”

Thirteen years later, through an iron-barred window, he recognized him and bared his teeth again. Dark brows, deep-set eyes, and the same words: “You’re here, idiot.”

Only two people in the world had ever called him that. One was his late mother, and the other was Qin Ge.

[Reading guide]

1. Qin Ge is the top; Chu Minshi is the bottom.

2. The top is a journalist, the bottom a lawyer. They’ve had mutual crushes since adolescence.

3. There isn’t much plot, and I don’t know how far I’ll get with it. This is a casual palate cleanser, possibly a little idealistic, with both sweet and savory notes. I’ll write as I go.

4. The author isn’t a legal professional, but will do their best to research the legal details. If anything is inaccurate, just think of the setting as fictional.

Theme: May ideals never die, and justice live forever