Name: Lychee Record Player [Secret Crush]
Author: He Yuanxiao

Synopsis

[Thanks for supporting the official version! I'm revising the book from time to time. I'm looking for readers for my next secret-crush story, similar to The Butterfly Page in my author profile!]

Blurb:

Sensitive and gentle x carefree golden boy

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I feel the universe flowing between your eyes and mine. - Adonis

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Yu Li had a crush on someone named Xu Song. Xu as in the character made of the characters for speech and noon, Song as in a tribute to pepper blossoms.

He was passionate, vibrant, and untamed, like a burning summer night drenched by a downpour that still couldn't put out the flames.

She wrote a song to hide her feelings. As they were about to part, she recorded it and wanted to give it to him. Summoning her courage, she went to find him in the rain.

On the way, she brushed past someone. The record fell from her hands and splashed into a puddle.

She crouched to pick it up, and two girls walked by her side.

"Is Zhu Cangyue going to confess to Xu Song? Won't she get rejected? What a pity, she's so beautiful."

"Haven't you heard? Xu Song likes Zhu Cangyue."

Her fingers had been soaking in the rain for a long time. She picked up the record and quietly turned back.

Her secret crush, hidden from the light of day, came to nothing.

/

They met again.

At a dinner, the others jokingly egged them on.

Seeing Xu Song grow increasingly silent, Yu Li spoke up first. "Neither of us feels that way about the other."

After the gathering broke up, the man pinned Yu Li against the door.

"What makes you so sure I don't feel that way?"

Her heart trembled as she smelled the faint trace of alcohol on him.

His grip on her wrist was tight, but his tone was utterly submissive. "Yu Li, I'm not as calm as you think."

Later, at the end, he loved to ask with a lazy smile:

"Service complete."

"Satisfied, Lili?"

/

Xu Song knew Yu Li had once liked someone else.

She called him Classmate H.

After they got together,

when Xu Song learned that Classmate H had confessed to her, he immediately flew back from abroad. He came home without saying a word, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her deeply and repeatedly until midnight. Only then did he speak, his voice cautious. "Don't leave me."

Yu Li was bewildered, but did her best to kiss him back and reassure him. "I won't."

One day later,

Xu Song happened to spot a carefully preserved record.

The words on the cover had been blurred beyond recognition, but he could just make out: To Classmate H.

It was a past he'd never been part of, a girl's secret crush that had nothing to do with him.

His jealousy was fierce.

He felt utterly despicable. He wanted to throw it away, but couldn't bear to.

Before putting it back, he felt some raised marks on the back of the record: XS, YL.

They were initials carefully carved one stroke at a time.

They were also the lonely, devout feelings of a girl in love.

#After listening to A Letter from the Past a thousand times, I locked your name and all my yesterdays inside the record player, never imagining that one day you'd hear it with your own ears. - Lychee Record Player#

Next book:

Secret crush | Bittersweet | Good girl x guitarist

☆"He's the most beautiful butterfly page in a storybook."

☆Blurb:

Zhu Yunshu had met Chen Jinyi a few times with her older brother.

He was the guitarist in her brother's band, a senior in his final year of high school, and the person she'd secretly had a crush on for two years.

The only connection between them was that, without telling anyone, Zhu Yunshu tutored Chen Jinyi in English for a month after he had an accident.

On the last day, he'd already passed the IELTS exam.

That month had felt like a dream she could never hold on to, no matter how hard she tried.

Zhu Yunshu felt a pang of sadness, stifled by how little progress their relationship had made.

She planned to say a proper goodbye to Chen Jinyi on the last day, but accidentally overheard her brother on the phone: "What? Chen Jinyi? You've got a crush on someone? Are you planning to ask them out today?"

Zhu Yunshu pressed her lips together and stared at their empty chat history.

She knew she shouldn't get her hopes up, but she couldn't help it.

She waited all night and didn't get a single message.

So he already liked someone.

So a secret crush wasn't gentle at all. It could leave you covered in sharp wounds.

At 12:01 a.m., Zhu Yunshu fought back tears and slowly typed: [Sorry, I don't want those materials anymore. I don't want to come over tomorrow. I hope everything goes well for you from now on.]

Before she could get a reply, everything suddenly came to light.

At one in the morning, her parents hurried back from out of town. They confiscated Zhu Yunshu's phone and ordered her to move into the school dorms immediately.

That's how she made it through a bleak, sunless senior year of high school, losing all contact with Chen Jinyi.

*

Years passed. After graduating from college, Zhu Yunshu applied to host a podcast program at a television station.

The interview opportunity was hard to come by, and the other candidates were top students from other schools.

Before entering the interview room, Zhu Yunshu took a few deep breaths. In a voice only she could hear, she repeated his name, trying to calm herself.

"Chen Jinyi, Chen Jinyi, Chen Jinyi..."

It was a habit she'd had for six years.

She kept her eyes lowered and didn't notice someone passing by.

When she'd said his name for the third time, she sensed something in the deathly quiet room.

She raised her eyes, and her breath caught in that instant.

He was standing not far away, looking rather curious as he tilted his head and asked, "Were you... calling my name?"

*

Zhu Yunshu had loved a fairy-tale picture book since she was little.

On its butterfly page, she wrote the name Chen Jinyi used in his band: A Yale.

Later, Chen Jinyi secretly added a few words: A Yale belongs to Zhu Yunshu.

Later still, that picture book became the bedtime story they read to their daughter every night.

Please note: