Braving the Winter

Pretend Dating Turns Real | Travel Romance | Sweet Romance, Happy Ending

Quirky and clever x Paragon of virtue

Coming soon in the author's collection: Second Chance Romance | School Years First, City Life Later | Both Are Flirts

Three months after starting her own business, Yu Yin stared at her dismal data and fell into deep thought.

Three whole months. Why had she only made thirty yuan?!

Unwilling to give up, she immediately set off to become a road-trip blogger.

But she left so suddenly that she had absolutely nothing planned from the start:

No itinerary

No destination

No travel companion

Just a burst of enthusiasm from who knows where.

That's when Yu Yin met Shen Lu. The man wore a black outdoor jacket, his emotions dark and unreadable in his eyes, as if he were about to merge with the night.

Yet this person, who seemed so cold and unapproachable at first, helped rescue a puppy when she was at a loss.

The second time Yu Yin ran into him, a storm raged in his eyes. He looked exhausted and down on his luck, so she couldn't leave him behind and invited him along on her trip.

Shen Lu had gone out to clear his head, but as luck would have it, he ran into a ray of sunshine.

She pulled him out of the freezer and kept him company through the winter.

And since she was already helping him, when he got caught in the quagmire of blind dates, Yu Yin stepped up and pretended to be his girlfriend.

But when she saw that Shen Lu's blind date was her own older sister, all she could do was silently think, I'm sorry, madam. You're on your own.

She'd agreed to be a fake girlfriend just to avoid an awkward situation, but she never expected Shen Lu to come right to her door to propose, claiming to be her boss.

What on earth? Travel buddy to lover, and then employee?

Content warnings:

1. Age gap: the male lead is five years older than the female lead.

2. Half city romance, half road trip.

3. Not an adventure road-trip novel. At its heart, it's a romance.

Coming soon

1.

Zhou Qian and Cen Lin first met on a rainy day. A puddle of muddy water in a narrow alley reflected her bruised face.

Cen Lin didn't fit in here. He wore a clean white shirt, and in the gray weather and gray world, he seemed like a ray of light suddenly bursting into Zhou Qian's vision, throwing her disheveled state into sharp relief.

"What are you looking at? Want a beating?" Zhou Qian crunched the candy in her mouth.

That was the first thing she ever said to him.

2.

By a twist of fate, they became deskmates. The place around Zhou Qian, usually ignored by everyone, suddenly grew lively with Cen Lin's arrival.

There were two reasons: first, he got good grades; second, he was handsome.

Annoyed by all the commotion, Zhou Qian simply moved aside and propped her head up to watch.

Then, when three girls cornered Cen Lin in an alley to confess their feelings, Zhou Qian couldn't stand by and stepped in to help. Naturally, she became his big sister.

But even a big sister sometimes needs a little brother to protect her. Zhou Qian was framed, had her hands and feet tied behind her back, and was thrown into an unfinished building. Terrified of the dark since childhood, she trembled.

With a bang, someone kicked the window apart. The boy's handsome face was cut by flying glass, leaving a bloody mark. He paid it no mind and pulled her into his arms. "You idiot. How could you fall for that?"

After that, their relationship shifted again: she called the shots on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; he did on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; and they both got Sunday off.

During the days Cen Lin called the shots, Zhou Qian felt like she was drowning in a sea of studying.

Unable to take it anymore, she remembered that she'd been the emperor, with him at her feet, at the start. Zhou Qian decided to end their big-sister and little-brother arrangement.

She never expected that ending their arrangement would leave her pinned against a wall by her 188-centimeter-tall little brother, unable to move. Cen Lin's voice was pained and restrained. "Zhou Qian, don't leave me."

But the person who had told her not to leave was the first to go. Zhou Qian was alone again. She sneered. "Liar."

3.

When they met again, he was her lawyer, defending her and winning her case.

But he refused payment. "Zhou Qian, date me."

In a striking red dress, she was beautiful and dangerous. She turned the knife around and pressed it to his neck. "Cen Lin, I'm the one who decides what happens between us, not you."

The man's gaze was gentle, his purpose clear. He took hold of the blade and guided it down to his heart. "You can have the say, and you can have my heart."

He willingly stepped into dangerous territory.

Theme: Someone pulled me out of the freezer