Late-Ripening Fruit

The full manuscript is complete. Starts at 200 favorites.

*A tale of an ordinary woman's comeback, with a friend becoming a lover and hate turning to love.

[An aloof, handsome elite who falls for looks at first sight x a spiteful, calculating, polished, self-serving genius]

Dai Zhen, the cold-faced number two in the president's office, is in an online relationship.

Her partner is Min Cong, the president, whose office is right across from hers.

Though they're the closest of superior and subordinate, the two are at each other's throats for two reasons:

Dai Zhen isn't beautiful enough;

Dai Zhen was planted there by the old Chairman Min to keep an eye on him.

Min Cong is arrogant and picky, with no patience for anything that isn't beautiful.

He already resents Dai Zhen for constantly following him around, and to make matters worse, she always wears a sour expression.

They can't even be bothered to pretend to get along anymore.

They meet in the break room. Min Cong glances at Dai Zhen, whose looks are plain and whose clothes are conservative, then scoffs. "Plain Jane."

Without even looking up, Dai Zhen knows he's wearing another designer suit, as if he's heading for a red carpet. She fires back, "Peacock."

*

Back in his office, Min Cong loosens his tie, annoyed, and opens a social media app to calm down.

His anger hasn't faded, but now something else is getting riled up.

On the chat screen, the woman on the other end sends him a glimpse of her upper thigh, wrapped in shiny stockings. Pressed together, her thighs look even fuller and softer.

But she doesn't stop there. Her voice message is soft and husky-sweet: "I wore your favorite plum perfume today... Oh, and there's a garter belt above the stockings, too."

Through the glass, Dai Zhen sees the blinds in the office opposite come down. She scoffs and takes off her suit skirt, covering the two thin strings at the top of her thigh.

*

As a teenager, Min Cong was the aloof campus heartthrob, perfect in every way, with a life that always went smoothly.

Except that in high school, an inconspicuous, bespectacled girl confessed to him at the worst possible time, just as his parents were divorcing.

He coldly humiliated her to her face. When she ran off, angry and ashamed, he felt a strange rush of satisfaction.

After his birthday, he transferred abroad and soon forgot his own viciousness.

"Cong, do you still remember Dai Zhi'en, that bespectacled girl who confessed to you back then? I heard she works at Dinghe now, too. I wonder how she's doing..."

Min Cong swirled his wineglass. "Someone like that is destined to do odd jobs wherever she goes."

Yet after getting drunk, he clung to his phone and slurred, "Zhenzhen, I miss you so much. I love you so much."

He was crazily longing to make that plain face come alive with color because of him.

*A sincere heart from a scoundrel, with values turned upside down.

Theme: Hardship makes people stronger