As Dusk Falls

Next up: My Wild Wind, a pseudo-incest story featuring a slightly unhinged beauty with a mental illness × a scheming, dark, brooding man. Blurb on my profile. Please add it to your favorites!

Blurb:

◆ Reunited after years apart / he has a secret crush / says one thing but means another × different on the inside and out

When Su Xiao was seventeen, a friend told her something.

"If a boy stares into a girl's eyes for more than three seconds but doesn't kiss or touch her, then he definitely doesn't like her."

So Chen Mu didn't like Su Xiao.

But he was always following her around like a clingy puppy.

Su Xiao admitted that she had been the one to approach the puppy at first. She lied to him, made the first move, and befriended him, all because she had an ulterior motive.

But there was no reason for his kindness toward her.

Even when Su Xiao got angry with him and gave him the silent treatment, he would quietly wipe away her tears and care for her when she was sick.

On New Year's Eve, which was also Chen Mu's birthday, he stood in a hospital room beneath brilliant lights and made a single wish: Could you please stop pushing me away?

Su Xiao agreed.

Later, they promised to go to the same city and attend the same university, but Su Xiao broke her promise.

She lied to him again, then abandoned him.

-

When they met again, the gentle little puppy had turned into a cold-faced big bad wolf.

Question: What should you do when you run into an old classmate you've hurt?

Friend: Run. Run as fast as you can.

Su Xiao: But he has my mom.

After two seconds of silence, a string of question marks appeared on the other end.

Su Xiao locked her phone and looked again at the handsome man standing before her, dressed in a white lab coat, his boyishness long gone.

He was her high school deskmate, and also her mother's attending physician.

Su Xiao tried to make small talk. "I heard the cafeteria lady at Number Ten High School hooked up with the security guard. Is it true?"

Chen Mu said nothing, his eyes icy.

Seeing that wasn't working, Su Xiao quickly changed the subject. "By the way, I went with a friend to the premiere of your sister's new movie yesterday. You should've seen how crazy the fans were. I had barely walked in when I almost..."

"I know," Chen Mu murmured, his thin lips parting.

"?"

Su Xiao wondered. "You were there too?"

"I didn't stay long. I left as soon as you arrived."

Su Xiao: Ah... What a shame.

-

On her twenty-fourth birthday, Su Xiao sat alone in Sijiping Park and cried for a long, long time. When she had cried until she had no strength left, she saw Chen Mu.

He stood in the evening glow and held out his hand to her. His cold-faced big bad wolf persona gone, he asked gently if she wanted to come home with him.

Su Xiao stubbornly slapped his hand away, her eyes red as she asked if he thought she was pitiful, and whether she would have a terrible life without him.

"I do."

"I'm the one who has a terrible life without you."

Chen Mu knelt on one knee before Su Xiao, resting his forehead against the hollow of her shoulder. He held her trembling fingertips and spoke with the gentlest voice. "So would you let me have a better life?"

Su Xiao's eyes slowly grew misty.

The little dog she'd accidentally lost seemed to have wagged his tail and found his way back to her.

*

1. From campus to the city

2. Freelance writer × cold-faced doctor

3. Both are virgins, happy ending

The male lead could sum up their relationship in one sentence: "I know you're no saint, but I still want to fall with you."

Theme: Love can overcome anything