You Arrived Before Winter

[Reunion after a long separation / Rekindled love / Happy ending / Sweet romance]

Xia Shi stumbled into the neighborhood's reading garden.

The boy's profile was like a painting as he looked down to explain a problem. When he stood, his elegant figure rose above the crowd, straight as bamboo.

She clutched her book of mistakes and squeezed into the crowd, but he didn't spare her a glance.

That was the first time she saw Su Xinyi.

The top student in the grade, a shining moon whom everyone looked up to.

They seemed to have nothing to do with each other.

But one evening, as rain poured down, the boy suddenly stopped her on her way home from school, holding an umbrella.

Raindrops streamed from the ribs of the umbrella.

His elegant fingers held a pink envelope, and his usually gentle eyes were clouded with frost. "Who said you could accept someone else's love letter?"

Not long afterward, her father's debts forced the whole family to move.

Hugging a cardboard box at the entrance to Wuma Alley, Xia Shi looked back and saw the boy standing beneath a plane tree, his dark gray school uniform billowing in the wind.

She never knew how long Su Xinyi stood there that day.

-

Years later, she met him again as a high school freshman.

She had made it into Nanlin No. 2 High School with one of the lowest scores in her grade, but ended up as his temporary deskmate in the competition class.

The top student, admired by everyone for his gentle, refined nature, dropped the act and cornered her in an empty classroom.

"Don't help anyone pass me love letters again... And you're staying an extra hour for tutoring today."

Xia Shi wasn't good at fitting in, and it seemed only natural that people would ostracize her.

Whenever Xia Shi crouched in the winter corridor, wringing water out of her soaked uniform, a fresh school uniform, still warm from someone's body, would always appear beside her. Books covered in cruel insults would also "happen" to end up in a pool of water.

Until one day, when she returned to school early, she caught Su Xinyi throwing the ringleader's schoolbag into a garbage truck.

His usually buttoned cuffs were rolled up to his elbows.

The boy's handsome profile was sharply defined in the morning light. "Try touching her again."

In three months, Xia Shi went from near the bottom of the grade to ninth place.

Later, her custody arrangement changed and she returned to live with her mother, leaving Nanlin once again.

-

Seven years later, they met again at a wedding. The man, now a rising star in the tech industry, caught her wrist beside the champagne tower.

The liquor gleamed in the glass, reflecting the desire lurking in his eyes. "Miss Xia, long time no see."

One day two months later, in the dim early morning light, the ringing phone shattered the room's lingering intimacy.

Xia Shi got up, still half asleep, but the man's long arm tightened around her waist.

"Are you going to leave without a word again?"

His lips brushed her neck.

"This time, I won't let you, Xia Shi."

[Reading Guide]

1. Each other's first love / No age gap / Secret love comes true

2. The male lead is extremely possessive. He's both a childhood friend and someone who appeared later in her life.

3. Mostly school life, with a little urban life. No puppy love during the school years.

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Please add my upcoming story, The Dog-Type Trap, to your favorites.

[Dark, obsessive heir × clear-headed orphan living under someone else's roof]

[Obsessive and twisted | Coercive romance]

The first time Wen Siya met Wen Tangyin, she had just returned from her mother's funeral.

Her father patted her shoulder and introduced him. "From now on, he'll be your older brother."

The boy leaned against the doorframe, his white shirt collar hanging open to reveal his collarbone, half his face lost in shadow.

He stared at the girl's pale lips and let out a scornful laugh.

On her eighteenth birthday, her father had a three-tiered fondant cake specially brought in from Zurich.

But Wen Siya kicked over the table, splattering cream all over Wen Tangyin's sky-blue dress.

"You think you have the right to celebrate on my mom's death anniversary?"

Wen Tangyin knew her brother had always hated her. Rumor had it that her mother was Wen's father's first love.

And Wen Siya's mother's death surely had something to do with her.

Wen Tangyin was cornered against a wall by a group of delinquents from the neighboring class in an alley by the school gate.

Just as someone was about to shove her into the mud, she saw Wen Siya's black school uniform flash past the corner of the wall.

The boy's long legs strode over, his approach cold and imposing, as he casually spun his car keys between his fingers.

He looked down from on high as she was bullied, lowered his eyes to admire her trembling, and curled his lips in a cold smile. "Scared? It's not too late to go home now."

That night, she knocked on Wen Siya's bedroom door.

The corners of the girl's eyes were red, and a bruise marked her wrist, but her tone was calm.

"Brother, can you call the teacher and ask for a day off for me tomorrow?"

"Who are you trying to make feel sorry for you?"

Wen Siya stood up and touched her slender, pale neck. As their breaths mingled, he suddenly chuckled.

"Why are you shaking? Afraid I'll choke you to death?"

Until the day Wen Tangyin accidentally found a wall of candid photos in Wen Siya's private villa.

There were more than three thousand photos neatly stuck to the wall, from pictures of her sixteenth birthday to side views of her hanging laundry in everyday life.

As she stood there in alarm, someone grabbed her around the waist with one hand and pinned her against the damp brick wall.

The faint fragrance of sandalwood filled her nose, and his voice murmured like a lover's whisper.

"You can't escape."

"Because Wen blood flows through your veins, and my name is carved into your bones."

"Who was that man who called you yesterday?"

His fingers gently brushed her delicate hair as he slowly buried his face in her neck.

"It's all right if you don't tell me."

Wen Siya had never thought of himself as a madman.

He'd once tried to deceive himself into forgetting her, but on the chilly nights as the weather turned cold, he lay awake until dawn.

Later, he tried sleeping with her underclothes in his arms. Once that habit began, it never stopped.

He kissed her earlobe tenderly and passionately. His cold heart beat faster at her trembling, and he spoke in a restrained, husky voice. "Punish me, or you can choose to love me."

"Whatever happens, I won't leave."

[Reading Guide]

1. Two-year age gap; both are each other's only one.

2. In public, the male lead is gentle; in private, he's a deranged obsessive. Beneath the female lead's docile exterior, she's rebellious.

3. The leads are not blood relatives and are not registered in the same household.

4. They have no romantic relationship while their family ties remain in place.

Theme: Love life