Winter Floods in Wanping

(Full text proofread)

One day, a friend secretly showed Lin Shu'ang a photo. It showed a man in a flight jacket, captured from a cleverly concealed angle.

You could see the scarlet glow of his burning cigarette, and the sharp profile of his face in its light.

"That's the guy from the compound next door who went to Yanbian. No wonder all those girls are so smitten with him. He really is handsome!"

Her friend sighed as she turned the photo this way and that, admiring the man in it.

Jiang Keneng. Lin Shu'ang had known about him for a long time.

He was a legendary figure in the compound, famous enough that everyone their age was inevitably compared to him. Without exception, they all came up short. Lin Shu'ang's older brother, Lin Jiangjiang, was one of them.

Few people knew what Jiang Keneng had been up to in Yanbian, but the stories of the young rising star and his eye-catching exploits always made their way to the children of the compound. Everyone had assumed he would follow in his father's footsteps. No one expected him to pull a sudden reversal and submit an application to leave the military and transfer back to Beijing.

Almost everyone around her was talking about it. The only one too wrapped up in work to pay attention was Lin Shu'ang, who was living through a blur of exhausting days and nights.

Until one day...

Lin Shu'ang emerged from the restroom with a cold expression and, by pure chance, ran into someone.

He was leaning lazily against the wall. She looked twice because of his imposing presence and that familiar profile.

As she passed, he flicked the ash from his cigarette. "Your clothes are askew."

If there hadn't been just the two of them there, Lin Shu'ang wouldn't have known he was talking to her.

When she turned the corner and glanced back, he was blowing smoke rings, the white smoke thick around him.

Lin Shu'ang stopped and met his gaze. A cigarette rested between his fingers, smoke curling around him, but there was an indescribable intensity in his eyes.

The man before her overlapped with the figure in the photo.

Reading notes:

1. The male lead has been in love with her for years. They lose each other, then reunite.

2. The male lead is not the female lead's first love.

3. Includes an amnesia trope involving the female lead as a child.

4. SC.

5. No annoying ship wars, and please don't send unsolicited writing advice.

Theme: Live positively, with hope and love!