An Unfinished Summer

Just minutes before they were due to register their marriage, Qin Yingxia was told that her arranged-marriage partner had been switched to his younger brother, her ex-boyfriend, Xu Tingzhou.

It was an arranged marriage either way, so she didn't care whether he was the older or younger brother. The two of them registered their marriage.

After the wedding, they were forced to live together under the old master's watchful eye.

Xu Tingzhou suffered from severe insomnia. On their first night living together, he smoked by the floor-to-ceiling window for half the night.

As his ex, Xu Tingzhou knew exactly what Qin Yingxia was really like.

To make things easier for them both, he staged an affectionate act, carefully planned in advance.

They played along and put on quite a performance. In the end, the nanny left, and they slept in separate rooms.

-

One snowy night, Qin Yingxia half woke to a heart-wrenching sound.

She got out of bed to see Xu Tingzhou retching.

Because Xu Tingzhou had taken sleep medication for so long, he had developed a severe tolerance to it.

Since he'd helped her look after her grandmother, Qin Yingxia didn't want to owe him anything. She also wanted to test a new aromatherapy method, so she cared for him all night, slipped the ring he'd worn for years off his finger, and helped him sleep.

That night, Xu Tingzhou slept more soundly than he had in years.

-

At last, one day, Qin Yingxia glimpsed the secret hidden inside the ring.

The engraving wasn't English initials, but three unmistakable Chinese characters: Qin Yingxia.

One ring, one secret. The nature of this arranged marriage had changed.

Xu Tingzhou held his tearful wife in his arms and gently wiped away her tears. When she pressed him through her sobs, he told her everything.

They met in the summer of 2008, but said fewer than ten words to each other in all three years of high school.

They fell in love in the summer of 2016, but broke up before their relationship had even lasted a year.

In the summer of 2024, they fell in love again and carried on the summer they had never finished.

○ Both leads are sexually inexperienced. There shouldn't be much to worry about.

○ Not angsty, just sweet.

○ The title comes from the lyrics of "Echoes of Summer": the summer they never finished.

Theme: That midsummer, they fell in love once again