Sweet Bait

[The upcoming novel Full Moon Dwelling in the Night Sky is being written. The blurb is below. Please add it to your collection, dear readers~]

[Childhood Sweethearts / Reunion After Years Apart / Healing and Redemption / Sweet, Doting Romance]

Resilient, sunny, adorably airheaded foodie painter x seemingly gloomy but secretly devoted, emotionally wounded CEO

Shen Qingzhi is a painter whose family has fallen on hard times. To make money, she has no choice but to sell her paintings.

She sets her sights on Qi Linhuai, a businessman who would spend tens of millions on a painting. As luck would have it, he is also her childhood sweetheart, with whom she lost contact more than a decade ago.

He refuses to buy her painting, but says, "A painting isn't as interesting as a person. Let me see, Miss Shen, are you... good enough?"

Shen Qingzhi thinks there's still a chance, so she starts making a diligent effort to get his attention, pitching her paintings to him every chance she gets.

But little by little, she realizes Qi Linhuai doesn't seem quite the same as he was when they were children. For example:

He likes to stare at her, his gaze as cold and unsettling as a snake's.

He keeps licking and sniffing her neck for no reason, a bit like a dog...

When she covers his mouth, he licks her palm...

He gets upset when she won't kiss him, but is happy when she slaps him.

He also loves eating food straight from her mouth.

But if you call him a pervert, he's actually quite innocent. For example:

He cries because he misses his mother.

He ties her hair and her shoelaces for her.

He stands up for her and gets even with people on her behalf.

When she tells him to quit smoking, he does.

-

[Little Scene]

After they get together, they video call. Shen Qingzhi is shy, and hangs up after only a few minutes, her face red.

Qi Linhuai teases her for being a coward.

Later, they have another video call, and Qi Linhuai keeps asking her to say his name.

"Qingzhi, say it."

"A Zhi, say my name, please."

"Baby, don't hang up. Let me look at you."

-

Two years after they break up, Shen Qingzhi returns to the country. Qi Linhuai won't leave her alone, so to make him give up, she has no choice but to lie: "President Qi, is it really okay to kiss a woman who has a boyfriend? Don't tell me you want to be the other man?"

She knows Qi Linhuai hates people who ruin other people's happiness. His mother was driven to her death by a mistress.

But who could have guessed he'd ask, "Do you want me to?"

And he has absolutely no shame about targeting anyone nearby. As soon as he sees a man beside Shen Qingzhi, he makes snide remarks and tells him to get in line.

Random passerby: Thanks, but I'm not interested.

#What do I do after selling a painting and getting tangled up with the buyer?

#No idea, he fell for me all by himself

#A fake gloomy guy who is actually all about true love

#First he was my childhood sweetheart, then my business partner, then my boyfriend, and only at the end did my ex-boyfriend become my husband

[Reading Guide]

1. One true pairing, happy ending, three-year age gap. The male lead's personality changes before and after they fall in love (you know how men in love are). Our female lead is principled, not a saint!

2. Lots of callbacks, all to create a sense of fated perfection

3. Slow-burn pacing, with a heartfelt romance

Upcoming novel: Full Moon Dwelling in the Night Sky

Gentle, serene divorcée and mother, a violinist x youthful single dad and intellectual heartthrob, a genius in artificial intelligence

*Older woman/younger man / Flirty push and pull / Two highly intelligent leads / Size difference

Shu Qingyue has a fastidious sense of emotional purity and longs for the truest kind of love. She can't accept even the slightest betrayal or the idea that she isn't the only one in her partner's heart. So she divorced her first love, the man she had loved for years.

So what if her marriage failed? Shu Qingyue still has plenty of suitors. Her friends are also eager to set her up with men. When they keep pressing her about what kind of man she wants, she says only, "You know, no one younger than me. Not even by a year."

She won't date a younger man. She's afraid he'll be immature, that he'll be after her money, or that he'll expect her to cater to his emotional needs...

Shu Qingyue is a woman of principle. Even though that man is mature, emotionally stable, and has a great deal going for him, and she really is attracted to him, once she learns that he's seven years younger, she can't help seeing him as a little brother.

-

Pei Ji is a genius. He started college at fifteen, and now, at twenty-one, he's already in the third year of his doctoral program. With his striking looks and wealthy family, everyone says he's a rare genius, a natural leader destined for greatness. Someone like him ought to be confident and free of worries.

But there's one thing Pei Ji can't do anything about, an objective fact he can't change: his age. For the first time, he resents being so young.

On Pei Ji's twenty-second birthday, a junior asked what wish he had made. Was it to do a postdoc at MIT, start a successful company and become one of the leading figures in artificial intelligence in China or even the world, or get more papers accepted at NeurIPS?

The birthday boy himself, expressionless and looking half-dead inside: I wish I could somehow become seven or eight years older.

So word went around their research group that their senior had gone crazy from studying for his PhD. Apparently, he wanted to transmigrate seven or eight years into the future so he could finish his postdoc, start a successful company, and make the Forbes rich list.

The rumor started in the research group and was soon changed there too. Before long, people were saying that twenty-two-year-old Pei Ji had a three-year-old daughter! And that the child's mother had dumped him! He was a single dad! Did that mean he had become a father at... how old? OMG! Everyone felt sorry for him, but also thought this was beyond their ability to comprehend. They found it easier to believe Pei Ji had gone crazy.

When Pei Ji heard the rumor, he couldn't help laughing. Then he played up the image his fellow students had given him and pretended to be pitiful. "They say you're heartless, that you seduced me and abandoned me, leaving your husband and daughter behind."

Shu Qingyue replied with a knowing smile, "I didn't abandon my daughter, but it's true that I left my husband." She really had kicked her ex-husband to the curb.

This time Pei Ji really did feel sorry for himself. He lowered his head and leaned against her, all aggrieved, saying, "You know who I mean."

Shu Qingyue likes teasing him, but always comforts him right afterward. "All right, all right. What do I have to do to prove my innocence and put these rumors to rest?"

Pei Ji curled his lips into a smile, wrapped an arm around her waist, and whispered in her ear, "Big Sister, be with me."

[Reading Guide]

1. Seven-year age gap. The female lead has no prior sexual experience, while the male lead does. The female lead has a very sweet two-year-old daughter with her ex-husband, and she has custody.

2. The leads won't have any children after marriage. They have just the one daughter, whom the male lead treats as his own.

3. They will spend a few years apart later. The female lead is the one who ends things, but it has a happy ending!

4. Everyday romance, slow-paced

Theme: You are what gives this world meaning