The Year of Innocence [Rekindled Romance]

[Beijing elite circles, overseas, scheming, stealing a fiancée (unmarried, no cheating), both inexperienced]

[Flirtatious and scheming genius designer x arrogant, ruthless heir to a powerful Beijing family]

Lin Shiyi x Jiang Shaoping

They were a collision of vivacity and silence, an entanglement of mountain springs and raging flames, a roar of downpour and gale. The first decade of the new millennium had passed. These were the years of their innocence.

-

A winter night in 2015, Vancouver.

Jiang Shaoping had just stepped away from a cross-border merger and acquisition negotiation when the piercing screech of brakes erupted on Robson Street. He looked toward the sound and saw a girl in a white dress and a thin coat suddenly dash into traffic.

Car horns blared all around her, voicing their displeasure.

Jiang Shaoping saw her trying to protect a Chinese Canadian girl who had fallen in the middle of the road. She was in a panic and didn't know where to go.

Just as the hem of her coat was about to get caught beneath a tire, Jiang Shaoping strode over and pulled her out with lightning speed.

Lin Shiyi, still shaken, picked up the crying girl and softly comforted her. Only then did she quietly thank Jiang Shaoping.

Her gaze was sincere, her face fair.

When Jiang Shaoping met her clear, bright eyes, he realized just how heavy his heartbeat was.

/

2017, Los Angeles.

The lights outside Lin's Atelier were dim. When Jiang Shaoping pushed open the shop door, the howling wind woke Lin Shiyi from her nap.

"Mr. Jiang, what brings you here so late at night? Are you ordering funeral clothes or a wedding dress?" She lazily unrolled her measuring tape, her tone unfriendly.

He unbuttoned his rain-soaked black shirt. "Take my measurements carefully. This time I want a shirt, one that fits close."

As the measuring tape wound around his waist, she pressed a finger into the grooves of his abs and gently rubbed. "Breathe in."

He scoffed. "Does the boss of Lin's need to stand this close to take measurements?"

"It's Mr. Jiang's body temperature that's too high," she said, her nose almost brushing his Adam's apple. "It's distracting me."

Rain traced a web across the glass. Amid the patter, the measuring tape slid over his back.

He abruptly turned and wrapped an arm around her waist. She cried out as the sharp edge of the tape narrowly grazed her ear. His expression was hostile, his voice unmistakably cold. Listen closely, and there was even a hint of resentment.

"You planned everything. How did you fail to predict that I'd follow you to LA?"

In her life, as if controlled by a puppet master, Lin Shiyi had made only two decisions of her own: one was to approach him in Vancouver, and the other was to open a tailor shop, so she could see him.

"Each of us in a different place,

A face of innocence lost in the dust of the world,

This life is so hard to bear."

Setting: Vancouver, Beijing, Los Angeles, New York

2025.2.16, 1:44 a.m.

Theme: Love