Realistic fiction / slow-burn romance / rental-apartment life / flawed characters / mutual top and bottom, with a preference for top
Lin Ye dropped out of high school and left home to work when she was sixteen or seventeen. With little education, she tried all kinds of jobs before finally settling on factory work.
Her life was plain and uneventful.
When she was twenty-four, her family demanded that she pay the bride price for her younger brother's wedding.
Lin Ye wanted to fight back, but years of her parents' upbringing had made it impossible for her to refuse. She gave in and handed over her savings so her brother could marry.
His new bride was only nineteen and came from a remote mountain village.
When they first met, she was tiny and thin, with sallow skin. She looked as if she weren't even an adult.
Nineteen was below the legal age for marriage, but in the village, holding a wedding banquet was enough to make a marriage official.
On the wedding day, Lin Ye's lazy younger brother got blackout drunk. She lay in her simple room, waiting for the noise to die down completely.
Half-asleep, she heard a soft knock at her door. Lin Ye got up and opened it. It wasn't her parents. It was her brother's new bride.
The young woman wore a bright red, cheap qipao. Her small, dark face was covered in ugly, old-fashioned makeup, and she looked extremely ill at ease.
Lin Ye softened her voice. "What's wrong?"
The young woman had bright eyes, and Lin Ye could see the unease in them. The bride took Lin Ye's hand in her rough one and wrote against her palm: "Big sis, can I sleep with you?"
The bride couldn't speak.
On the night they were supposed to consummate the marriage, the young woman lay in Lin Ye's bed. Her quiet sobs kept Lin Ye awake. With her back to the bride, Lin Ye let out a slow sigh and finally made up her mind.
*
Lin Ye wasn't especially capable, and the only jobs she could find were low-level work.
She rented an old one-bedroom apartment with the young woman. She didn't let her work at the factory, because a mute girl would be bullied there.
Lin Ye used the last of her savings to help the young woman get a driver's license and buy a secondhand car. She became a taxi driver.
Life seemed to have changed, and yet it hadn't.
Lin Ye began to look forward to going home, because someone was waiting for her there.
The young woman loved writing on her palm, then giving her a shy smile, her eyes curving with pure sincerity.
"Big sis, you're amazing. You know so much."
"Big sis, you're so pretty. I wish I could become pretty too."
"Big sis, how come people in the TV shows have a baby after they kiss? If you and I kiss, will we have a baby too?"
Lin Ye laughed and said, "Want to try?"
The walls in the rented apartment were thin. The young woman couldn't speak, but she often made soft, breathy sounds, sweet and alluring. Lin Ye raised a hand to cover her mouth and leaned close to her ear. "Keep it down. The neighbors will hear us."
The young woman Lin Ye had brought home with the bride price was meant to be hers.
*
One on one, both virgins, character growth, no blood relation, and they aren't registered in the same household.
Theme: Love helps people grow.
A Guide to Playing a Scumbag [Quick Transmigration]
Wasn't I Supposed to Be Universally Hated? [Infinite Flow]
Who Taught You to Be So Patient?! [Quick Transmigration]