The Whale and the Unfinished Rain

Coming soon: The Alley Was Longer Than I Thought. Blurb at the bottom.

A quiet, reserved piano tuner & a glamorous, larger-than-life pianist

1,

In their senior year of high school,

Wen Ran and Xu Xiyan met for the first time. The eighteen-year-old had naturally curly hair and a face like an early-blooming rose. That was when Wen Ran first learned that allure had nothing to do with age or experience. Xu Xiyan only had to stand there to become the center of the world.

Xu Xiyan was a prodigy who'd transferred from Beicheng. From then on, Wen Ran began the quietest and yet loudest unrequited love. Their names would never be mentioned together by anyone.

2,

At twenty-six,

Wen Ran was an utterly ordinary piano tuner at a music shop. One day after work, a colleague chatted with her about the latest gossip. “Xu Xiyan came back to the country today. The airport was packed with her fans.”

An internationally acclaimed pianist who had become a sensation, Xu Xiyan was a once-in-a-generation talent, famous for her extraordinary gifts, her rose-like beauty, and her cool temperament.

Wen Ran pressed her lips together and smiled. “Mm.”

Wen Ran returned to her barely forty-square-meter rental, where steam filled the room. A woman in a bathrobe came over, her pale wrist slipping around Wen Ran's waist. Her voice was low and husky. “A-Ran, when are you going to make us public?”

“You're getting my clothes wet.” Wen Ran gently pushed her away. “And there's no chance of making it public. When our two-year contract is up, we'll go our separate ways.”

*When the woman you once had a crush on becomes your secret lover

“When I was eighteen, the closest I ever got to her was standing together under the eaves of the piano room, sheltered from that evening's sunshower. Half the sky was warm with sunlight, the other half poured with rain. She fluttered her butterfly-like lashes at me. It was a crush that could only exist in youth, bound by the length of one twilight.”

School life at first, city life later. 1v1, happy ending.

Coming soon: The Alley Was Longer Than I Thought

A former slacker turned genius jewelry designer x her greatest rival, another genius designer

Two formidable older women: a lazy flirt x a cold, ruthless ice queen

1,

As a slacker, Cheng Xiang never imagined she'd die so casually.

One year and thirty-five days after breaking up with Tao Tianran,

she was run over by a little electric scooter on her way to the market to buy liangpi.

Lying on her back at the crosswalk, watching the first snow of winter drift down, she thought:

That icy wasteland, Tao Tianran…

Had she ever managed to warm her up, even for one second?

2,

Tao Tianran was Cheng Xiang's classmate in both high school and college.

Calling Tao Tianran an aloof beauty wasn't quite right. She was more beautiful and even colder, an icy wasteland where nothing could ever bloom.

Cheng Xiang had chased after Tao Tianran since high school, and everyone knew it.

The day Tao Tianran agreed to be her girlfriend in her junior year of college, Cheng Xiang held a three-day feast at a barbecue stall outside campus.

That grand gesture became a laughingstock the day she and Tao Tianran broke up, six months after graduation.

3,

Maybe fate wasn't done messing with her. Cheng Xiang discovered she was alive again.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she thought this could be interesting

She'd been reborn as a rich heiress, and her older brother was pursuing Tao Tianran. Before long, she might even have to call Tao Tianran “sister-in-law.”

Like hell she would.

Now she had money, looks, and a great ass. Surely she could melt Tao Tianran's icy wasteland?

Until one rainy night, Tao Tianran knocked on her door in the pouring rain, her black hair clinging haphazardly to skin as pale as snow.

Cheng Xiang sneered inwardly. Tao Tianran, so you can love someone after all. You just couldn't love me.

But Tao Tianran's lips trembled, and her rain-chilled fingertips brushed Cheng Xiang's lips. “Are you… Xiao Xiang?”

“From the sun's activity to the end of the most recent glacial period, it took 8,000 years.

How long did it take Tao Tianran to realize that the long alley she could never reach the end of in her memories was as beautiful as a regret?”

Theme: Keep hope in your heart.