Heartbeats [Winning Her Back]

[Sweet and indulgent / Winning her back / From campus to the city / Female lead disguises herself as a man / Female-lead-centric / The heroine is always in the right / Powerful, high-ranking male lead who's a total romantic]

[Mary Sue warning! Both leads are each other's first love and are sexually inexperienced. Happy ending.]

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Everyone at school knew that Qiu Yinong was Shang Que's devoted simp.

Whenever Shang Que exercised, she brought him water. Whenever he stayed up late, she brought him soup.

Even when people teased them,

she was the first to stand up for Shang Que's good name.

Everyone thought she was madly in love with him, and Shang Que thought so too.

But he was straight and always watched coldly from the sidelines,

never stepping in to save this transfer student from the mainland, whose reputation had been ruined over a personal relationship and who was on the verge of being expelled.

He had already resented his grandfather for forcing a lackey on him.

When he later found out she was a girl, he simply waved her away.

In Shang Que's plans, that summer night by the sea was supposed to be Qiu Yinong's last night in Hong Kong.

The girl, in her school uniform with her hair softly curled, asked him for just one thing.

She walked up to him and pressed her face against his chest.

Her slender fingers, delicate as the stem of a lily about to snap, hung at her sides.

She didn't reach out to embrace the boy's lean, powerful waist.

Shang Que lowered his head and looked at the girl in his arms.

Her brows furrowed like willow leaves,

the slight curve of her upturned lashes,

and the tiny mole beneath her eye, trembling faintly with sadness.

Without warning, his heart stirred.

Fine.

It wasn't as if they could ever get as far as marriage.

After they started dating, Shang Que discovered his girlfriend was too shy.

She timed their kisses with a stopwatch, and after each one she would curl up against his chest,

wait for his heartbeat to gradually settle, then retreat to the distance of an ordinary friend.

Like a beautiful tropical fish that glowed cruelly out of reach, swishing its tail as it swam away.

He thought it was just a game.

Until he opened her diary.

A few short lines, all filled with concern and love for him.

Don't stay up too late.

Don't do strenuous exercise.

Don't get too emotional.

Shang Que thought it was a bit much, but he couldn't stop the corners of his mouth from lifting.

Then a photograph caught his eye.

A boy in an unfamiliar school uniform.

His quiet, well-behaved girlfriend sat on the back of his bicycle,

her long hair flying in the wind, her smile bright and carefree.

If he hadn't seen the neat, elegant handwriting on the back of the photo,

"He took good care of your heart."

Shang Que probably would have wished the happy couple well.

[Bonus scene]

Years later at a cocktail party, Shang Que's friend asked when he was going to start dating.

Shang Que replied,

"I'm not dating. I'm going straight to marriage."

Nobody took him seriously. He didn't even have a partner, so what marriage?

Shang Que smiled without a word,

suddenly remembering that she had never agreed to make their relationship public, and feeling a pang of resentment.

When the party ended, his friends couldn't find Qiu Yinong anywhere.

No one knew.

In the darkness, the tipsy heir to one of the wealthiest families

held his ex-girlfriend by the wrist and kissed her bare-backed through the cutouts in her dress.

As she shivered slightly, he forced her to turn around.

He cupped her face, not caring that his heart was racing, and kissed her again and again.

Between kisses, he said,

"It's fifteen minutes from HKU to the marriage registry. I booked us in for 2:20.

I've got your documents ready too."

"If we leave now, we'll get there just in time."

Shang Que breathed softly, his lips wet and flushed from their passionate kisses.

His dark eyes gazed at her, overflowing with a tremendous, wholehearted love:

"Baby, that office floor in Central, the villa at Yiyun in the Mid-Levels, and the 'Sunrise' ruby from Sotheby's..."

"Is all that enough to buy me a place in your life?"

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#Spring tilts, and a handshake can turn into a seizure in the blink of an eye#

#And at last, the introverts try to speak this love aloud#

Theme: Long live pure love.