The Sea You Never Came to Meet Me At

Starts posting on December 2. Updates according to the schedule if it gets a feature; for now, updates are whenever I feel like it.

[Cool-headed head pastry chef vs. scheming heir to a wealthy family]

[Orphan vs. illegitimate son]

1.

After a sudden car accident, Tan Song runs into Cheng Siheng, the boy she had a crush on in high school.

They haven't seen each other in ten years. He is no longer the poor kid who had to save his breakfast money for a month to buy her a birthday present. He's the youngest person ever to take control of Wanzhou Group, as well as the eldest son of the Jin family, a regular fixture at the top of the entertainment gossip charts.

He has reached the pinnacle of success, living a life of lavish indulgence.

Tan Song, meanwhile, is still an ordinary person, busy all day just to make ends meet. She knows the gap between them all too well and keeps her distance. When his assistant hands her a business card, she turns around and tosses it into a roadside trash can.

2.

Tan Song grew up in an orphanage. At seventeen, she moved to a big city with Ming Shu, a girl who had also grown up in an orphanage, transferred to a local high school, and met Cheng Siheng there.

Back then, he was just an unruly boy, wearing a black T-shirt faded from countless washes. Since he was good-looking, girls often slipped him love letters.

At first, Tan Song and he kept out of each other's way. They sat at opposite ends of the classroom and barely spoke.

One day, Tan Song was late for school and got caught by Cheng Siheng while climbing over the wall. He turned around and told the teacher, getting her punished with a written apology.

Annoyed, Tan Song reported Cheng Siheng to the teacher for leaving school early.

That was how their feud began.

In Tan Song's eyes, Cheng Siheng was just a try-hard punk, until one afternoon she saw a middle-aged woman whose street stall had been overturned by some thugs. Cheng Siheng stood in front of the woman, glaring furiously at them.

3.

When Tan Song was eighteen, she and Cheng Siheng agreed to go see the ocean together after their college entrance exams.

But in the end, she went alone.

#A promise made by the young is fragile, shattered by a single blow#

#We briefly missed each other, weathered rain and snow alone, grew up alone, then circled back and met again in silence#

Note: The title comes from the internet.

Reader's guide:

1. This is a slow-burn romance with two virgins, mutual secret crushes, and a happy ending. The process gets a little angsty (by the author's standards).

2. There is a huge gap in social status between the leads. Please don't read if that bothers you.

3. There are many flashbacks (please take note!!!). Most of the story takes place in the city; the school days are all in flashbacks.

4. Both leads have flaws and aren't perfect. Please don't read if that bothers you.

5. It includes some old-fashioned, melodramatic tropes.

6. The details about the leads' jobs are the author's own inventions, so don't scrutinize them too closely.

7. Not based on real people.

Theme: Your fate is in your own hands