She was like a fish biting its own tail, desperately fleeing the whirlpool
Yet longing for it, too.
1/
Xu Qingyi and Shen Jinxi were high school desk mates. Everyone said they couldn't stand each other. They ended up at the same university, and Shen Jinxi heard from one of Xu Qingyi's friends that she wanted to date. At a bar, he drove off the man beside Xu Qingyi, sat down next to her, and drawled lazily, "I heard you want to date someone?"
"Why not give me a try?"
Xu Qingyi had no idea where Shen Jinxi had heard that. But she thought his suggestion sounded pretty good.
As graduation approached, Shen Jinxi secretly planned to propose to her, only to hear that she wanted to break up and go abroad for graduate school.
"Xu Qingyi, you really are heartless." Shen Jinxi's voice was edged with sarcasm. He clenched the ring in his palm.
"You were only playing around back then, too." Xu Qingyi smiled coldly and said goodbye lightly. "We're adults. Let's part on good terms."
On the day she left, snow blanketed the city. Xu Qingyi didn't expect to see Shen Jinxi on the way to the airport. She knew why he was blocking her path, but simply smiled and said, "Shen Jinxi, let me go."
The beautiful, cold-hearted woman showed not a trace of lingering affection in her eyes. In the end, Shen Jinxi did as she wished and stepped aside.
2/
After returning from abroad, Xu Qingyi was at the same bar, telling a friend she planned to find a fake boyfriend to fulfill her gravely ill grandmother's wish.
After the music ended and the crowd dispersed, in the alley behind the bar,
Shen Jinxi cornered her in a dead end beyond the streetlight's reach. His eyes were smiling, yet dark. "Looking for a boyfriend?"
"Why not give me a try?"
"After all, we're good at this by now."
One night after they agreed to pretend to be together, Shen Jinxi wore her out on the study sofa.
"Has that man kissed the scar on your waist like I have?" Shen Jinxi's robe hung open as he looked at the woman lying on the sofa, then tossed the tissue he'd used to wipe down the table into the trash.
Xu Qingyi was too exhausted to speak.
He sat down beside her again. "Does he know who gave you that scar?"
The man's voice was rough with jealousy over the man who had put an arm around her waist at the banquet.
Xu Qingyi's heart trembled. She thought he must be crazy, and reminded him hoarsely, "We're only pretending to be together."
"Pretending?" He smiled. "Keep dreaming."
"Xu Qingyi, you won't get away this time."
The rainy night was damp, and the room was filled with passion. As the downpour began, he made her say, "I love you."
His kiss landed on her scar.
3/
Xu Qingyi defied everyone's objections and started dating Shen Jinxi, but from the very first day, she knew they couldn't be together forever. Until one day, she had no choice but to leave.
After that, while abroad, all her nightmares and sweet dreams were about him.
Xu Qingyi had always thought she'd been the first to fall for him in high school. She didn't know Shen Jinxi had started plotting long before that: countless chance encounters beneath the setting sun, and subtle seduction through his good looks.
Through all those confrontations, when neither could stand the other, someone had already surrendered.
Shen Jinxi spent years loving someone and waiting for someone. At last, he waited for her to bravely run toward him.
"Even a stubborn, avoidant person will have a summer when they bravely run toward love."
"He is the whirlpool, and also her home."
Reading tips
1. Bright, alluring, and cold-hearted seductress x dark, scheming prodigy (a story about two stubborn, mean people carefully falling in love)
2. Primarily set in the city, with school days interspersed
3. Healing, rekindled love, reunion after a long separation, secret love becoming mutual, both sexually inexperienced, happy ending
Theme: Love can overcome every hardship.
