A Breeze Blows In Over Hong Kong Island

·The reader's guide includes content warnings. Please be sure to check whether you're comfortable with them ^ ^

[Rational yet out of control, sharp-tongued but soft-hearted, fussy lawyer x aloof on the outside, warm on the inside, laid-back and distant guesthouse owner]

Caught in a media storm over a child abuse case, Zhou Yanning is forced to take a long vacation.

She escapes to Hong Kong Island, hoping for some peace and quiet. Instead, she stumbles into a seaside guesthouse and straight into a pair of eyes veiled in mist.

The owner's name is Su Rao, and she's just like her name: languid and carefree. Even sitting behind the front desk, she's more alluring than the night in Hong Kong Island.

Her friend teases her over the phone: "Didn't you say you wouldn't date long-distance?"

Zhou Yanning looks at the woman watering flowers not far away. The sea breeze lifts her skirt, brushing against Zhou Yanning's heart again and again.

She smiles. "I could... try dating someone."

Three months is enough for the tide to rise and fall a hundred and eighty times.

It's enough for someone to go from "she's so beautiful" to "I can't live without her."

The day Zhou Yanning leaves, there's fog over Hong Kong Island.

Later, she wins the case and remains the star lawyer she always was. But sometimes, when she works late into the night, she thinks of the damp breeze of Hong Kong Island.

She thinks it was just a brief, beautiful fling in her life.

Until one day, she books the earliest flight to Hong Kong Island.

No reason. She just misses her.

*

Su Rao owns a guesthouse on Hong Kong Island.

She grew up on the island, watching her father leave, then her mother. She learned one thing: never expect anything from anyone.

Until the woman named Zhou Yanning appears.

She holds Su Rao's hand in an escape room, comes to find her with an umbrella on a rainy night, and secretly buys her the most expensive Leica after her camera breaks.

Su Rao tells herself: this is as far as it goes.

But that woman draws her out in her own way.

Su Rao believes her, and loses.

That woman still leaves.

The day Zhou Yanning leaves, Su Rao stands at the pier for a long time. The sea wind is cold.

She thinks, if that woman won't come back, then she'll go to her.

So she books a flight to Ancheng.

[Ever since you left, the fog over Hong Kong Island hasn't lifted.

This time, I'll travel two thousand kilometers to stand before you and tell you:

If someone is waiting for you in the wind, you're not wandering.]

Reader's guide:

1. Both are each other's first and only|Sweet romance|Emotional push and pull between mature women|Mutual attraction

2. Slow burn (important)|Low-key urban life (important)|Sweet everyday romance

3. They dote on each other. Sweet when it's sweet, angsty when it's angsty. You can yell at the author, but not at our precious girls.

4. This is a heavily fictionalized setting, not an authentic depiction of Hong Kong Island. Please don't scrutinize it; just think of it as an island. After all, there's no decadent glamour here (lights cigarette~)

5. Blurb is provisional, written 2026/02/15

Coming soon: Scheming for You

[Reborn black-lotus Grand Princess seme x seemingly innocent but secretly cunning female chancellor uke]

In her previous life, Li Chengxi won.

She killed the Crown Prince and secured the throne.

Only Wen Du, the woman who rose from government slave to Minister of State, the most useful blade in her hand, died in the final year of the struggle for the throne.

Before she died, Wen Du, covered in blood, leaned against the wall of the Imperial Prison. She looked up at the secret agent who had come to see her off and smiled.

"Tell Her Highness for me," she said softly, "I wish her long life alongside her kingdom, and brilliance to match the sun and moon... May all her wishes come true."

Li Chengxi listened and fell silent for a moment. "I understand."

For seven years after ascending the throne, she read memorials, quelled rebellions, and executed corrupt officials. The candles in the imperial study burned all night, but there was no one left to trim their wicks for her.

Her old wounds returned, and she coughed up blood without end. On the night she died, there was no one at her bedside.

The last thing she thought of was Wen Du's smile.

Then she closed her eyes. When she opened them again...

The red candles at her coming-of-age ceremony flickered painfully bright.

Newly assigned maids knelt beneath the corridor. At the very end stood a thin girl of fourteen or fifteen, her head lowered but her back ramrod straight.

Li Chengxi pointed at her and smiled. "Send that maid to serve me."

Someone asked, "Your Highness, why keep a criminal's daughter at your side?"

She didn't answer.

She only thought to herself: A game of chess must be played slowly, and a person... must be won over slowly.

*

Wen Du has a secret. She's been in love with the Grand Princess for a long time. So when the Grand Princess chooses her maids, Wen Du gives up her chance to rise through the ranks and goes to the Princess's residence without hesitation.

Everyone in the capital knows that Grand Princess Li Chengxi is the most unhinged royal daughter. She tore up a marriage-alliance decree, pointed her sword at the Imperial Observatory... Everyone says she's a rebel and will be deposed sooner or later.

Wen Du doesn't care about any of that.

She sweeps, carries messages, serves tea and water, and does everything a maid is supposed to do. But the Grand Princess always finds her in the crowd at a glance, then calls her name.

"Wen Du."

"Yes."

"Come here."

Sometimes she has her read memorials. Sometimes she has her grind ink. Sometimes she does nothing at all, only asks her to stand beside her.

From maid to Minister of State, then to female chancellor, Wen Du follows this path without quite knowing how it happened.

Until one night.

Li Chengxi finishes reading the last memorial. It's already late.

Wen Du steps forward to tidy the documents, when a hand suddenly closes around her wrist.

"Yanjun."

"Yes..."

"Come to my bed."

Wen Du freezes in place.

Li Chengxi doesn't urge her. She only holds Wen Du's wrist, her thumb stroking the pulse point again and again as she waits for an answer.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I-I'm not..."

"Then come here."

Later, Wen Du looks back on that night and can't figure out how she was coaxed into that bed.

She had only been called by name. She had only been looked at. That hand had simply never let go...

And somehow, she'd followed her as if bewitched.

Like a debt from a previous life, one she knew she had to repay the moment she saw her again in this life.

[You want the Nine-Gate Phoenix Terrace? I'll tear down Chengming Hall to pave your way.

You want a legacy of infamy? I'll write with my vermilion brush and share the stain in the history books.]

Theme: Love means choosing each other, no matter the danger