Hard to Pursue [Broken and Mended]

At seventeen, Lin Jiamu transferred to Tianyang High School. Back then, she was quiet and awkward, drifting outside the crowd, the most inconspicuous and least popular girl around.

Qi Chao, on the other hand, was the dazzling pride of heaven: from an outstanding family, brilliant at school, and brimming with youthful confidence. Every girl had a crush on him.

Yet he chose to flirt with Lin Jiamu, a girl from a world so far beneath his own. Everyone assumed the young master Qi was only after a bit of novelty, but Lin Jiamu fell for him all the same.

On the summer night after the college entrance exams, she ran to meet Qi Chao, only to hear his friends gossiping about his relationship with the affiliated high school's campus beauty. Whenever they mentioned her, their tone was mocking. "That Lin Jiamu is nothing but a decoy Qi Chao uses to keep other girls away."

Only then did she understand that all the love she had given him had been nothing but a joke.

-

At a noisy class reunion, Lin Jiamu had shed her old awkwardness. In a long black dress that fell to her ankles, her hair swept up behind her head, she looked radiant and captivating as her eyes moved across the room.

Qi Chao, too, had long since outgrown his carefree, callow teenage self. He sat coolly at the center of the crowd, the glass in his hand catching a cold glint. When he looked up at her, there was not a trace of emotion in his eyes.

They both had someone by their side. The woman beside Qi Chao was demure and shy; together, they looked like a perfect match. The man beside Lin Jiamu seemed a little awkward, but beneath his reserved manner, he was devoted to protecting her, making their classmates envious.

Their work brought them together again. Outside the car window, rain poured in torrents; inside, the air was still and cold. Lin Jiamu blinked away the moisture in her eyes and asked softly, "Can we just pretend we don't know each other from now on?"

After a suffocating silence, Qi Chao looked at her with mockery in his eyes and sneered, "Did your boyfriend find out we kissed?"

-

Later, on a midsummer night, Lin Jiamu stayed over at Qi Chao's home and found a photograph by the bedside in his bedroom.

At the senior-year sports meet, she had been snapped by the school magazine in a formal dress. There were two people in the picture: teenage Qi Chao, his dark eyes lowered toward her, filled with deep infatuation.

Qi Chao wrapped his arms around her from behind and tapped the seventeen-year-old version of her in the photo. "It took me a full eight years to win you over. Don't you think you were hard to get?"

■ Reading Guide

"Someone by their side" is a misunderstanding. The hero and heroine have only ever loved each other, body and soul.

Roguishly handsome, bold, and dazzlingly talented hero x reserved, awkward, well-behaved heroine

Rising star in the gaming industry x voice actor

No intimate relations before adulthood

Each other's first love, both sexually inexperienced, happy ending

//

■ My new novel, After Flirting with the Wrong Crush, is currently updating. If you're interested, please add it to your favorites ^^

At a private gathering of Beijing's elite, the guests were all powerful and influential. He Zongting sat in the seat of honor, the center of attention.

Pei Nian's arrival caused a commotion.

Her identity as a fake heiress had been exposed earlier. Not only had she been thrown out of the wealthy family, but her arranged marriage to the He family had naturally fallen through as well.

It wasn't hard to guess why she had come.

She was still dreaming of marrying He Zongting.

His friend Huang Sheng couldn't resist teasing him. "You don't meet many women as beautiful as her. You really aren't interested?"

He Zongting curled his lips carelessly. "If you like her, she's yours."

That night, he received a friend request from Pei Nian. Her hopeful eyes flashed through his mind, and He Zongting sneered.

She really was still deluding herself.

*

Pei Nian had had a crush on Huang Sheng for years. Before, her engagement had forced her to keep her feelings hidden. Now, she had finally added him on WeChat.

But she had never dated anyone and was too shy to say what she felt. The only way she knew how to flirt was to wish him good night at a set time.

Huang Sheng naturally paid her little attention.

But one day, Huang Sheng began replying to her messages instantly, and his words took on a hint of possessiveness.

Pei Nian wished him good night again.

Huang Sheng asked her: [What did I teach you yesterday?]

Pei Nian's ears instantly turned bright red. With trembling fingers, she replied: [Good night, hubby]

Huang Sheng: [You have to call me that in person too, understand?]

Pei Nian: [Got it, hubby (/// ///)(/// ///)]

She thought she was about to find sweet love, but unexpectedly discovered that the person she had been flirting with for two months wasn't Huang Sheng at all. It was her cold, aloof former fiancé, He Zongting!

Pei Nian immediately deleted him from WeChat and turned off her phone, trying to pretend nothing had happened.

The next day, she turned on her phone and stared in shock at a screen full of friend requests. The latest one had come in just a minute earlier.

[Did your hubby teach you to start something and then walk away?]

* Powerful tycoon x fake heiress

* Cold, arrogant, and scheming x gentle and honest

Theme: Love can save everything