I Rise on the Wind to Chase the Sun

This isn't a brainless wish-fulfillment story. It's the autobiography of a genius girl.

She was born into misfortune and died in the dust. But her soul was brilliant and free, and her achievements were beyond the reach of almost anyone. She reached for the stars and chased the moon in pursuit of the light, then gradually became the light herself. Brilliant beyond her years, she died young, devoted to her work. She needed no one to write an elegy for her. With her blood as ink, she carved her name into the backbone of her country.

Life is about more than romance. There is also solitude in adversity and the resolve to make every move count in times of glory.

***Meng Tunan's first fiance was an insecure, unwell, and truly beautiful boy. He constantly needed proof of other people's loyalty and love. A textbook avoidant, he'd lash out at others at the slightest hint of trouble, then retreat at once.

Great. His crazy, childish advances successfully brought out the ruthless decisiveness buried in Meng Tunan's bones. He earned the full set: humiliation, a beating, and a broken engagement. Of course, Meng Tunan paid dearly too. Before she was even an adult, she was forcibly sent abroad.

Meng Tunan understood. A relationship forced together out of gratitude, when there was no love, could only end in disaster.

***Meng Tunan's second fiance was the head of a century-old financial dynasty in the Eagle Nation, a chaste, conservative believer who abstained before marriage. He had to go to church and repent for three hours just for holding Meng Tunan's hand. He was a textbook aggressive personality, with a powerful sense of both self-control and control over others.

They studied under the same master and were equally intelligent. The difference was that Jonathan had to return to inherit his family business and shape the political landscape, his influence reaching around the globe. Meng Tunan, meanwhile, was devoted to research and never let anything distract her.

The tycoon Jonathan spared no expense, showering Meng Tunan with money as he raised her until she was eighteen. Just before they were to marry, they fell out because Jonathan wanted to target her homeland, interfere in another country's domestic affairs, and attempt to colonize it all over again.

Great. His political machinations and schemes successfully brought out Meng Tunan's fierce patriotism. If the nation is gone, where will its people belong? A century of humiliation was still vivid in her mind. She could die, but she would never be a slave! So she stole his plane and fled in the middle of the night.

The fallout was even more devastating this time. She was injected with the T-virus, which developed her entire brain. The price of her increased intelligence was a shortened lifespan and nerve pain that would plague her until death.

This time, she also understood: without a place to call home, a person is like duckweed. The body may die, but the knees must never bend. Of life's eight sufferings, only pursuing the work you love can make the long years bearable. A love that cuts to the bone for three or five years is really nothing much.

***The third man was Young Master Ling of the capital, a volatile hunter, both sincere and sly. After Meng Tunan forced him into losing his chastity, all he wanted was a proper title. So when her two ex-husbands showed up, he alone received Meng Tunan's affection and guilt, like the principal wife.

A sixteen-year-old girl and a twenty-eight-year-old man, their pear blossoms in full bloom, but their season all too brief.

If Ling Zhengrong had never met Meng Tunan, he would have remained the reckless young Master Ling, become Commander Ling, a man with an outstanding military record in middle age, and ultimately risen to an admired position. Romance was never something his life needed. He was meant to serve his country, a great man whose story could fill an autobiography.

His name could have been recorded in the history books alongside Meng Tunan's birth father: one without the stain of abandoning his wife, the other without the stubbornness of growing white-haired in middle age while seeking immortality. But somehow, both of them were abandoned by Meng Tunan.

Q: What's it like to have a father who's a famous, renowned figure?

Shu Jing: I can sort of answer this. My grandpa was almost that famous. Ahem. Basically, when I was a kid, I'd get itchy to pick up the red hotline at home and call my friends to arrange fights. In the end, their elders would personally ride over on their bikes and drop them off in the woods.

Cheng Xiao: If I wanted to study, I could get a recommendation letter to the university. If I wanted to see the ocean, I'd put on a white uniform and ride a destroyer out to experience it firsthand. If I wanted to pursue a girl, I'd get discharged and go straight to wherever she was. Tsk, my dad was still a bit lacking. He never managed to win her over.

Meng Tunan: Don't look at me. I never acknowledged him.

Q: What's it like to have a mother who comes from an old aristocratic family and is now the head of a conglomerate?

Jonathan: Thanks for asking. I'm a foreigner. Just make a wish. What do you want? If you really like the West's colorful black palace, you could stay there for a few years.

Sophia: I liked watching the little mermaid cry pearls. Whenever I cried, the nanny would stand behind me and scatter pearls.

Meng Tunan: Don't look at me. I never acknowledged her.

Q: What's it like to be rejected by your daughter?

Ning Heguang, Meng Tongchen: First cry for three or five years, then shut the doors and burn charcoal! Ah... I'll fight you all!

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Warnings: The main couple are each other's only partners. This is an alternate-universe setting with many original elements. I have always believed that things have objective properties, and that anything against the laws of nature is imagined. So please note: this is not a wish-fulfillment story. If you want a face-slapping story, you can click away.

The more I write, the more nervous I get, dears. This is a fictional work, and the conflicts are needed for the story. If anything resembles certain historical events, believe me, believe me, believe me: it's all made up. I can change it.

Please read rationally and distinguish reality from online fiction.

Don't read yourself into it, don't read yourself into it, don't read yourself into it!!!

All right, please add it to your collection!!!!

Come on, get in the bowl! Why aren't you coming? Do you not like my bowl because it's bigger than a basin?

Alternate-universe story. It won't stand up to close scrutiny, so please don't read yourself into it.

Theme: Hardship reveals courage, and trials make perfection.