Forbidden Words

Seventeen-year-old Su Zhiluo has a secret.

A secret known only to her and the roll book.

But when her mother remarries, she loses the chance to ever say that secret aloud.

His name is Kuang Xun, and he is her stepbrother in name only.

Their personalities are complete opposites.

One is the model student with top grades, a model discipline committee member.

The other does as he pleases, a troublemaker whose name gets written down time and time again.

They ride to school together but never speak, until one evening Su Zhiluo sees Kuang Xun in a corner, being beaten and kicked while someone steals his bracelet. She averts her gaze and leaves without looking back.

When she appears again, she lowers the brim of her hat and holds out something shining in the moonlight.

“Kuang Xun, take better care of your own things.”

Kuang Xun looks up and sees only her slender silhouette.

After that day, their relationship goes back to the way it was.

No one knows how she got his mother's keepsake back from those people.

Later, someone notices that a pine-nut charm has been added to the bracelet Kuang Xun often wears.

Four years later, Su Zhiluo returns to the country.

The first thing she does is get engaged to the man her mother chose for her.

That same day, she sees Kuang Xun for the first time in years.

She brushes past him, but he grabs her wrist.

“Why did you delete me? Why did you cut off contact for four years?”

She pulls free and smiles. “Was there any reason for us to stay in touch?”

To play the role of a good daughter, Su Zhiluo follows every move her mother has laid out for her.

That includes the rainy day her secret is discovered, when she accepts without question her mother's decision to send her abroad after graduation.

She doesn't dare disobey or make a wrong move, terrified that she might be the one who gets abandoned.

On the night of her engagement, Su Zhiluo goes upstairs and finds Kuang Xun in her room. Before she can tell him to leave, he pulls her inside and pins her against the door.

She stares at him in alarm as he takes out the roll book, its pages filled with his name. Every explanation dies on her lips.

“No!”

She puts a hand against Kuang Xun's approaching lips and warns him, “You're crossing the line.”

The beads knock together with their movements, their crisp sound drawing Su Zhiluo's attention.

Before she can make out the charm at the end, though, he grips her chin possessively and makes her meet his gaze.

“What you care about may not be what I care about.”

His warm breath stirs her loose strands of hair as he leans closer. Then a knock sounds at the door.

“Zhiluo, are you in there?”

It's her fiance.

Kuang Xun is faster. He catches her by the waist, holding her tight and pulling her closer.

His breath feels like an electric current, setting Su Zhiluo's reason ablaze.

“Make him wait.”

A smile curls across his handsome, cool face. “After all, first come, first served.”

Reading guide:

1. Both leads are each other's first and only, 1v1

2.

Theme: Be brave enough to love.