I Can't Bear to Let Her Be Tarnished [Childhood Friends]

*Pre-release: Zhou Garden [School Days Crush], please add to your reading list

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Powerful Family | Childhood Sweethearts | Playboy Turns Over a New Leaf | HE

Real Playboy & Heiress

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Su Zhaoyue and Wang Ze grew up together.

Wang Ze was exactly as his name suggested.

When displeased, his unsmiling face was like an endless ocean whose depths could not be plumbed.

When speaking tenderly and lovingly to girls, he was like a swamp that would never run dry.

It was impossible to tell whether he was pretending to be profound or shallow.

Su Zhaoyue knew full well that liking him was a complete lapse in judgment. In her twenty-odd years, she had rarely seen a girl last more than three months by his side.

If bloodthirsty carnivory was a beast's nature, then Wang Ze's was a life of wine and women.

To him, the love girls treasured like dew was no more than a little snack to fill his stomach. Anyone who fell in love with him was bound to leave disappointed.

Fortunately, the only irrational thing about her was that she liked him.

Su Zhaoyue came with a built-in self-delusion function, so she could even calmly and amicably befriend those girls.

Of course, every now and then, one of them would be hostile.

Girl A: "Zhaoyue, you've known A-Ze for so many years. Why haven't you taken advantage of being so close to him? Or have you secretly been in love with him all this time?"

Su Zhaoyue didn't react to the girl's boundaryless teasing. She only shot Wang Ze a chilly glance.

The next day, Wang Ze had a new girlfriend.

Neither of them would tolerate anyone insulting the other to their face. They treasured each other like precious jewels.

Precious jewels belonged on a high shelf.

Not in someone's arms in bed.

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Later, the Su family arranged a fiance for Su Zhaoyue. The pampered young lady had always known this day would eventually come.

She had planned to submit.

But before the engagement, Wang Ze rang her apartment doorbell.

He asked her one last time, "Do you want to marry him?"

The walls around her heart suddenly melted, and an ocean welled in Su Zhaoyue's eyes.

She shook her head gently.

He wiped away her tears. "Then it looks like I'll have to help you again."

The last time he helped her was when they were seven. She didn't want to play the tyrant's wife in their make-believe game, so Wang Ze defeated the tyrant and married his princess.

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"I can't bear to see her sullied, or entrusted to the wrong man."

Pre-release: Zhou Garden

Gentle, ordinary girl & Academic ace

Secret Crush | School Days to City Life

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Their last meeting during their school years was on the day they returned to school after the college entrance exams to fill out their applications.

He politely and distantly asked to borrow a tissue to wipe the thick layer of dust from a monitor. She handed one over without much expression.

She watched the scattered dust settle on her otherwise unremarkable youth,

and bury a secret crush no one had ever known about.

They went to universities at opposite ends of the country.

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Many years later, Shu Yin became a tour guide at a private garden. That day, as usual, she led a group of visitors around.

She told them that any one of the collections in this Suzhou-style estate was worth enough to buy an apartment in Beijing, Shanghai, or Guangzhou.

A curious visitor asked who owned it. Taking advantage of her position, she spoke the name she had repeated countless times in her heart.

"Yin Huaizhou. I hear he lives in North City now."

Her expression remained calm. She didn't notice the car window lowering in a corner of the courtyard, or the man turning slightly to listen as she said his name.

In the maze of his memories, a strand of a young girl's hair had once brushed against his writing fingers, briefly soothing his numb nerves.

Just like the flutter of his heart at that moment, it had been so light.

So light that in the blink of an eye, years had passed since they parted.

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She had thought she would spend her life in silence.

But a leaf from her youth fell into her palm.

They met again in his Zhou Garden.

Theme: Learning to love