[Manuscript in progress... over 70,000 words so far]
★ A resilient young woman from a mountain village who returns home to teach × a gentle, devoted rich boy who ran away from home
★ Both are inexperienced, happy ending, cozy romance + farming + building a better life
That year, Shan Jiachen stumbled into a poor, remote mountain village, where a girl named Chi Jing snapped off a sprig of osmanthus and gave it to him.
Later, the branch put down roots.
An osmanthus tree appeared in his courtyard, and someone took root in his heart.
-
Shan Jiachen's first twenty-five years had gone smoothly. Ever since he came to Taying Village, his life had been one mishap after another.
He went into the woods to pick mushrooms and improve his meals, only to poison himself.
He tried to curry favor by helping Chi Jing's family lead their cow, but it kicked him flying and sent him to the hospital.
On the way to a date, he casually picked a couple of leaves to play with, and before he knew it, he was swollen from an allergic reaction and looked like a pig...
He tried to maintain the dignity of a well-bred gentleman in front of Chi Jing, but somehow she witnessed every one of his most pathetic moments.
-
Chi Jing is the pride of Taying Village, the first girl in the village to get into graduate school.
After graduating, with a bright future ahead of her, Chi Jing returned to the mountains that had raised her.
The villagers couldn't understand it. She had worked so hard to escape these mountains. Why come back?
Chi Jing said nothing. She rode her motorcycle along the rugged mountain roads, knocking again and again on the doors of families whose children had dropped out of school.
She led the village in planting red-fleshed kiwifruit and Three-Branch Nine-Leaf Grass. She set up free holiday childcare classes at the village elementary school and turned an abandoned old house into a guesthouse...
Later, the village's muddy dirt tracks became smooth, solid concrete roads. The villagers had more and more money in their pockets, and fewer and fewer children dropped out of school to find work...
Only then did the villagers realize: Chi Jing had returned to the mountains herself, but with her own hands, she had paved a path out of them for countless other children, and breathed new life into this remote village.
[Bonus Scene]
Chi Jing gazed at the little tree in the courtyard, grown from the osmanthus branch, then looked at the person beside it, eagerly fiddling with a hoe and a carrying basket. "When exactly are you planning to go home?"
"Go where?" Shan Jiachen pressed her hand against his chest.
His heart thudded like a drum beneath Chi Jing's palm. Beside her ear, Shan Jiachen's gentle voice carried a smile. "My heart, my home, have been rooted here for a long time."
What did it matter if the world was full of countless wonders? His gaze would always follow this cool, gentle moon in the mountains.
★ Reader's Guide:
1. Both are inexperienced, happy ending, sweet romance
2. Set before the nationwide campaign to eliminate poverty
3. All place names are fictional, so please don't read too much into them
Theme: Building a beautiful countryside
An Endless Summer
When the Winter Snow Melts
Spring Rain, Silken Threads
Clear Skies Beyond Blue
Little Li Yue
Searching Everywhere, I Still Can't Find You
Love Letters on a Snowy Night
The Wind Cannot Be Stopped
Manta and the Guitar
Summer Breeze, Gentle as Grain
Autumn Never Came