A Portrait of a Guangdong Woman

A realistic story of survival.

A story about ordinary people, too.

1. After dating her boyfriend for several years, Lin Yuxing was proposed to.

She accepted without much enthusiasm and went with her boyfriend to meet his parents.

At the dinner table, when she heard his parents calculating how to take everything from her right in front of her, she decided to let the relationship go.

"Luo Sen, let's break up."

Lin Yuxing calmly took off her ring.

"I'm going to try a path few people have taken. We never need to meet again."

She left him with those two sentences and effortlessly ended their five-year relationship.

No matter how much Luo Sen threatened and raged, she refused to turn back.

With bags and suitcases in tow, she left the third-tier city and headed toward an uncertain future.

2. Li Jianian has an older sister named Li Xin.

A common sibling pairing in Guangdong families.

After their parents died, they divided the inheritance equally.

When Lin Yuxing arrived in Guangcheng determined to start over, he couldn't help remembering that Li Xin and she had once been together.

After some discussion, she rented his house and quietly settled in.

Later, to get a reduction in rent, she helped him swat cockroaches and catch mice, casually tossing the dead ones at his feet. Knowing he was timid, she told him ghost stories during power outages.

What a mean, sharp-tongued woman.

Li Shuo thought.

But he had known what she was like from the start.

"Sister Yuxing, I made chestnut and goji berry chicken soup tonight and cooked too much. Could you help me finish it after work?"

From that day on, a second set of dishes was added to the home where he had lived alone for years.

Sharp-tongued, cutting, clear-eyed career woman x scheming younger man who pursues his wife

* The novel has a fluid sexual orientation, so it is in the multiverse category

* Includes BL/GL storylines

* Slow burn (highlighted)

Theme: Breaking through one's limits