[Childhood friends | Staying under the same roof | Mutual healing | Reunion after years apart]
A sincere, stubborn, naive girl vs. a quiet, calculating puppy who longs to be loved
When Shen Mei was fifteen, a family upheaval sent her to stay with the Su family.
As a newcomer, she carefully reined in her unruly nature, hoping to please everyone.
Especially Su Lin, her childhood archenemy.
He was moody and unpredictable. Even though he knew she had night blindness, he still led her along dark paths. He wished her luck on her high school entrance exams, then turned around and gave her a cold look. “When did I ever say we were friends?”
Shen Mei gave up trying. Fine, then. They weren’t friends.
But she hadn’t expected the real trouble to come later.
When someone confessed to her, Su Lin stood across from them, gripping the umbrella he’d brought for her so tightly his knuckles whitened, the corners of his eyes red.
At last he could take no more. He grabbed her wrist and said to the other person, “You don’t even know she forgets her umbrella when it rains. How can you claim you’ll take responsibility for her!”
Shen Mei: “???”
You could’ve told me you look this good when you cry.
*
As for whether they were really archenemies, Su Lin thought she was the only one who saw it that way.
She gave up the physics competition and had a huge fight with her father.
With red-rimmed eyes, she said she wanted to help shoulder his burdens. And after he denied that they were friends, she even leaned right in…
His heart raced wildly, but he still had to pretend to be calm.
He fobbed her off by claiming the role of her older brother.
Who wants to be just your friend?
Later, when she was finally ready to go home, he thought she was leaving him again. In the dim room, the corners of his eyes instantly reddened. He rushed after her, clutching her wrist and begging pathetically, “Don’t leave me.”
“Choose me, okay? I’m begging you.”
“To be with you or not to be with you: that is the measure of my time.”, Jorge Luis Borges
[Reading guide]
1. Both leads are virgins; one couple throughout.
2. The heroine stays at the hero’s home, but there is no adoption involved.
3. The first draft of this blurb was written on May 26, 2025; the second on July 6; the third on July 21.
My next book, Even Cats Look Down on Me, is already in the works. If you’re interested, please add it to your reading list~
When Xu Zhao was eighteen, she fell in love with her friend’s older brother.
Chen Xingyuan was a dazzling, famous young director, confident and charismatic, yet out of reach. At the time, she was a rebellious girl who’d failed her college entrance exams and run away from home.
He had a terrible temper and regularly tore into people on set, but he generously took her in. When she was lost and struggling, he bent down and smiled as he comforted her. “Why are you in such a hurry to grow up? I don’t want to get old so soon.”
But Xu Zhao knew perfectly well that Chen Xingyuan was only kind to her because she was younger. Nothing more.
So she buried her feelings deep in her heart, where no one would ever find them.
When they met again, she was an actress nominated for a Golden Horse Award, working with him once more. She kept things strictly professional, no longer letting her gaze linger on him, and smiled as she accepted flowers from someone else.
She thought the past would stay in the past, and her unrequited love would forever remain hidden from the light.
But one night, alone together in a room, he was no longer out of reach. Holding her, he murmured in her ear, “Don’t leave me.”
“If I’d known I’d love you this much, I should have broken you two up right from the start.”
Theme: Love bravely
