This novel is also known as "After I Sent the Wrong Room Number, I Married My Childhood Nemesis Before Falling in Love" and "When Did My Childhood Nemesis Start Secretly Loving Me?"
[Childhood Friends] [Reunion After Years Apart] [Female Lead's POV: Physical First, Love Later] [Male Lead's POV: Secret Love Comes True] [SC] [HE]
* Lin Zhaoyan x Yue Jingyu
* Occasionally hyper-driven, straightforward, cool girl x secretly devoted, loyal puppy of a childhood friend who makes a perfect husband
1.
After the college entrance exams ended, Lin Zhaoyan went away to study, vowing to make a name for herself in a big city.
After graduating and landing a job at a major company, she failed at starting her own business at twenty-eight and returned to her hometown, a small county town. There, she saw Yue Jingyu again: the childhood friend she had always considered her nemesis, whom she hadn't seen in ten years.
What Lin Zhaoyan hadn't expected was that Yue Jingyu had done pretty well for himself over the past decade. He was now a special correspondent for the local county newspaper, thriving in his role.
They ran into each other at a pool hall. Lin Zhaoyan had just gone over to take a swing at him when Yue Jingyu swiftly blocked her.
He glanced at her and said sourly, "So you do know how to come back. I thought you'd died out there."
Lin Zhaoyan: "?"
Had he swallowed a firecracker? They hadn't seen each other in ten years, so why was he still so prickly?
2.
At a reunion with old friends, one of them teased Lin Zhaoyan: "You and Yue Jingyu have been at each other's throats since you were kids. Was there never anything else between you?"
Lin Zhaoyan casually tossed her empty beer can into a nearby trash bin and said frankly, "We were just childhood friends. What else could there be?"
At the table beside the trash bin, Yue Jingyu sat with his back to them, staring silently at the half glass of Jiang Xiaobai he hadn't finished. He began to ponder his relationship with Lin Zhaoyan.
He'd never heard of childhood friends kissing whenever the mood struck. And since she'd come back and reunited with him, she'd kissed him dozens of times. Their relationship was clearly more than innocent, yet she was doing everything she could to deny it.
She wouldn't give him an explanation, but kissed him without a care, even hinting now and then that she wanted to try that sort of thing with him. What a heartless woman!
Who wanted to be her fuck buddy? He wanted to be her official boyfriend and future husband. Otherwise, she could forget about touching him again for the rest of her life.
The veins stood out faintly on the back of Yue Jingyu's hand as he gripped his glass tightly.
-
A few days later, a friend dropped another piece of gossip on Lin Zhaoyan: "I heard Yue Jingyu's secretly liked you for years."
Lin Zhaoyan burst out laughing. "Who told you that? Yue Jingyu would sooner like a dog than me."
Yue Jingyu had just come over and sat down beside her. "..."
As it happened, he was holding the floppy-eared Bichon he'd adopted from the animal hospital.
Everyone had drunk enough to feel tipsy, and their friend kept joking around with Lin Zhaoyan. "A friend of mine says he's been secretly in love with you since he was still wearing split-crotch pants."
Lin Zhaoyan spat out the red wine she'd just sipped, then clutched her stomach and doubled over laughing on the sofa.
A certain someone named Yue Jingyu watched the whole thing with a cold expression. His handsome face was stormy. In her eyes, he might as well have been stripped down to his underwear already.
3.
Lin Zhaoyan's family arranged blind dates for her, since she was still unmarried at an age they considered late. The men they introduced were either ugly or short, and every one of them had a receding hairline and a beer belly despite being young. They were painful to look at, let alone date, marry, or have children with. One more glance and she might throw up last night's dinner.
When she was at her wit's end, her friend's words from the reunion came back to her.
Impossible. She was always the one making the first move and forcing things on him. A voice immediately sprang up in Lin Zhaoyan's head: Yue Jingyu liking her was as likely as the sun rising in the west or the universe ending the next second.
Then Lin Zhaoyan remembered Zhao Yiran, an old classmate she'd run into at an elementary school reunion a few days ago. They'd added each other on WeChat, and she could tell he was quite interested in her.
If she really had to date and marry someone, a man like Zhao Yiran wouldn't be a bad choice. He was at least tall and handsome, good enough even if he wasn't the best, and they were well matched. How had she only just realized that the best option was right in front of her?
Lin Zhaoyan decided to take a chance and test the waters with Zhao Yiran. If he agreed to be with her, she wouldn't have to endure any more of the awkward, mortifying blind dates her family arranged.
So, on Zhao Yiran's birthday, after dinner and after everyone else had left, Lin Zhaoyan sent him a suggestive WeChat message.
[Room 8888 at the Starlight Hotel. I'll be waiting for you.]
A second after she sent it, the other person replied:
[Lin Zhaoyan, what do you mean by this???]
Lin Zhaoyan was still figuring out how to explain herself when another message immediately came through:
[Reply. This is your last chance. If you don't, I'm blocking you!]
Lin Zhaoyan: "..."
Strange. Zhao Yiran was gentle-tempered. He wouldn't talk to her like that.
She took a closer look and finally realized what was wrong. In her haste, she'd sent the message to the chat just below Zhao Yiran's. That chat was with Yue Jingyu.
What should she do?!
She could only go along with it now.
Lin Zhaoyan's hands trembled as she typed in the chat, deleting and rewriting her message several times. At last, satisfied, she hit send.
[I heard you've been secretly in love with me since kindergarten. Since you've liked me all these years, why don't we give dating each other a proper try?]
The message failed to send, and a red exclamation mark appeared, along with the notice: "You are no longer friends with this person. Please send a new friend request."
Lin Zhaoyan: "..."
Moral: After all these years of fighting each other, it's time we had a proper go at loving each other.
It's still very cold, so I sent a piece of [Orange Candy] and ate [Purple Candy] kswl