Moonlight's Clear Glow

The blurb for my ongoing novel, "Aurora in the North," is at the end.

This story: [Straightforward medical device engineer x disabled snooker gentleman]

[Blurb 1] When high school began, Chu Hang took time off for a billiards tournament. Whenever his classmates talked about him, they tagged his name: "That Chu Hang who plays billiards..."

Before long, a video of Chu Hang competing appeared online, and the media tagged him "snooker prodigy."

Three weeks later, Chu Hang stepped out of the screen, sporting a buzz cut and wearing his school uniform properly as he walked onto campus. He became the talk of the school, covered in shining labels.

Later, Chu Hang gave up his education to pursue a career in professional billiards.

From "national team billiards player" to "world snooker champion," he collected more and more labels, drifting farther and farther away from an ordinary life.

Until one day, he fell from the top and disappeared from the public eye.

Years later, when You Enjing saw Chu Hang's name again, only one label remained in his file: "patient with an above-knee amputation of the right leg."

The room was dim. Chu Hang lowered his eyes, his gaze dull and lifeless. His voice was flat. "Don't you think it's cruel to talk about dreams with a useless person like me?"

"I've never thought of you as useless." A ray of sunlight slipped through a gap in the curtains and fell across You Enjing's face, bathing her in a warm orange glow.

She looked at Chu Hang. "Of all the labels attached to you, disabled person is the least important."

[Blurb 2] Class 2, Grade 10 had two legendary figures: a billiards prodigy who was impossible to pin down, and a cool, top-ranking goddess with countless awards.

Billiards prodigy Chu Hang was a maverick who gave up school early to pursue his dream of playing billiards. Top student You Enjing followed the rules, paid no attention to the world beyond her books, and believed technology could change the world.

Nearly ten years later, the two people who had seemed to have nothing in common met again by chance.

You Enjing was a professional senior medical device engineer, while Chu Hang had become the most difficult client in the entire hospital.

When they passed each other, Chu Hang's gaze was distant. He pretended not to know her and only wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

But the next day, You Enjing showed up at his door.

Chu Hang was cold and refused to cooperate with the examination, immediately ordering her to leave. "Take your product and go. I've got things to do. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

After that, Chu Hang avoided You Enjing's help countless times, only to be defeated by her persistence again and again.

Later, Chu Hang returned to the international billiards circuit and won the honors he deserved. After the competition, the two showed up hand in hand at their class reunion. Everyone exploded with excitement and urged Chu Hang to share his love story.

He looked at You Enjing with deep affection and was about to speak when she said earnestly, "I was developing a new product feature back then. I really needed his data."

Chu Hang: ?... You have no heart.

* One-on-one romance; both sexually inexperienced and each other's first love. Their careers and lives left them no time to date, but they're mature adults, and once they get together, they don't drag things out!

* The heroine helps the hero early on, then they join forces to turn their fortunes around.

* No romance during high school.

"Sunshine, clear-headed city planner & deaf, arrogant ice hockey player"

Advance notice: "Aurora in the North": Recently, a Little Red Book blogger suddenly became famous. Her account name: hjrnsnql814.

At first, her bio had only one line: "My boyfriend disappeared. I'm going to Canada".

When kindhearted netizens offered to help her file a missing-person report, she quickly added: "Don't worry, girls. He's fine, just a jerk"

Fame is a mystery. One day her account inexplicably went viral, and she added another line: "I'm not a comedy blogger! No ads!"

What made the blogger stand out was how extraordinarily unlucky she was.

She went looking for the northern lights and missed them because of hypothermia. She went to see grizzly bears and got caught in a pileup.

After nearly dying twice, she chose the safest season, summer, and flew to a small city in easternmost Canada.

The account hjrnsnql814 posted an update: "Last stop. Still haven't found him. I won't post again".

Fans were devastated, thinking she was going to shut down her account and leave the internet. Instead, they got another notification:

"Found him. He's disabled".

-

Three months after He Jingrui went missing, You Wenshan finally got her Canadian tourist visa.

She flew halfway around the world alone and arrived in Toronto.

Despite the jet lag, she went to the ice hockey arena where he trained and watched a game.

After the game, she was swept out of the arena with the crowd.

Standing in an unfamiliar city and listening to an unfamiliar language, You Wenshan felt something strange.

No one here knew her. Their story meant nothing here. The love she'd fought so hard to preserve and pursue weighed nothing in this world.

The world was vast, and she was the only one trapped.

You Wenshan suddenly let go. She took a deep breath of the cold air and smiled through her tears.

The next second, a crazed hockey fan accidentally hit her, and she was taken to the emergency room.

Pressing an ice pack against her swollen face, You Wenshan angrily posted a note:

"I got punched in Toronto. My boyfriend's going to pay ten times over!"

After that, she visited all the places He Jingrui had mentioned, turning their plans into a solo trip.

Bad luck followed her every step of the way, and she cursed the whole time.

On her last day in Canada, she swore: "Never again! I'll never come back to this godforsaken place!"

Then her flight was canceled because of a hurricane.

The hotels in town were either closed or fully booked. You Wenshan had given up on life and was curled up on an airport chair like a beggar when the kind woman beside her suggested, "Why don't you stay at my place? We run a bed and breakfast, and we have a spare room."

You Wenshan tearfully thanked her for taking her in.

With the hurricane approaching and no taxis available, the woman called her "most reliable" lodger to pick her up at the airport.

The person who stepped out of the black SUV looked more and more familiar.

You Wenshan was put in the passenger seat. There, she recognized the face she hadn't seen in so long, and noticed the outline of a hearing aid behind his right ear.

That evening, she cornered him on the stairs. The difference in their heights made her tilt her head slightly upward.

"Did you hurt your ear?"

He Jingrui didn't look at her. His eyes were hidden in the shadow of the hair falling over his forehead, and she couldn't read his expression.

"Is that why you didn't dare see me?"

He didn't respond.

You Wenshan gave a quiet laugh. "Do you think you're so cool, like the hero of a novel?"

Still silent.

"Coward! Jerk!" You Wenshan turned around in anger. Before closing the door, she added an insult to make sure he'd heard her: "Asshole!"

A short while later, someone knocked.

She opened the door and faced He Jingrui's guilt-ridden eyes. "I'm sorry..."

You Wenshan's heart softened in an instant, and her eyes even reddened.

She was just about to speak when He Jingrui added, "I wasn't wearing my hearing aid just now. What did you say?"

"..."

You Wenshan punched him ten times.

-

You Wenshan's Little Red Book account went viral among the Chinese community in Canada.

He Jingrui's friend mentioned it. "There's this blogger who's been looking for her boyfriend all the way to Halifax. It's hilarious. I thought she was devoted, but all her posts are just complaints and insults."

He Jingrui drank from his glass without a word.

"Hey, what does her username mean?" His friend stared at the screen and read it aloud. "H, J, R, N..."

He Jingrui glanced over and interrupted quietly: "Where the hell have you been, He Jingrui?"

His friend froze, then exploded. "So you're the jerk!"

"...What does the 814 at the end mean?"

"The day I ran away."

Theme: Love and dreams belong to everyone equally