How Can I Make You Shine?

[Inline comments enabled] Anti-piracy threshold: 80%. Thank you for supporting the official release.

Synopsis:

At eighteen, Qin Zhaozhao’s family fell on hard times. She went to the capital to study, carrying a book of perfume formulas.

To cover her living expenses, she took a part-time job blending fragrances for an old lady at the Zhou family’s courtyard house.

One snowy evening, she nodded off at her desk. Zhou Yanqing had just returned from an auction and leaned against the doorway, watching her for a long time. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to wake her.

That was the moment he fell for her.

Before long, everyone in their circle knew the Zhou family’s boss had a young woman from Jiangnan by his side.

Wherever he went, he took her with him, and she could use any rare fragrance material she wanted. If she happened to mention Suzhou’s green rice dumplings, someone would be sent rushing through the streets before dawn to get them for her.

Then, in the year she graduated, she said she wanted to study in England.

Without even looking up, he said just two words: “I forbid it.”

Not long afterward, word spread that the young woman at Boss Zhou’s side had dumped him. She had fled to England overnight and never returned.

Seven years later, Qin Zhaozhao returned home to great acclaim as a judge at an international perfumery competition.

As fate would have it, the competition’s biggest investor was the man she had avoided for seven whole years.

She was careful and kept her distance, wanting only to steer clear of Zhou Yanqing.

But he closed in at every turn, leaving no opening, invading every inch of her world.

That night, after a round of social engagements, she was exhausted in body and mind. She leaned against a wall at the mouth of an alley, catching her breath.

A shadow suddenly fell over her.

The man, cold as frost, stubbed out his cigarette and walked toward her step by step:

“You’ll run yourself ragged begging those irrelevant people for help, but you still won’t turn around and say a single word to me, is that it?”

The old lady of the Zhou family summoned him to her study and advised him earnestly.

“Now that Zhaozhao is back, you’re not to bother her again. Don’t make things difficult for her at work, and don’t use your status to pressure her. She has her own career now and is living independently. Letting her go will give yourself a chance to start over, too. What do you think?”

Zhou Yanqing stared at the dusty goose-pear incense burner on the display shelf. He was silent for a long time, then suddenly curled his lip.

“I can’t do that.”

[Reader’s guide]

1. Cool, career-minded perfumer x devoted, stubborn tycoon. One-on-one, both sexually inexperienced, with a nine-year age gap.

2. A story in Beijing’s upper circles | second-chance romance | an older man pursuing his wife.

3. The romance develops a little slowly, and the heroine’s family and career storylines are also part of the novel.

4. This is a work of fiction. Any place names or organizations are fictional and have no real-world significance. Please don’t associate them with reality. Check out the author’s collection for stories in the same series. Thank you for reading.

Theme: Freedom matters more than being pampered