A Universe-Shaking Heartbeat

Coming Soon: My Heart Aches for the Butterfly and After Marrying a Monster. If you're interested, please add them to your collection!

Delicate, sweet, and adorable girl with poor health x tough, foul-mouthed boy who's secretly softhearted

Qi Nian has a crush on Jiang Ye, the captain of the basketball team. He's carefree, uninhibited, and lives life on his own terms. Unlike him, she can only be a well-behaved, by-the-book top student.

She never imagined they would have anything to do with each other, until a basketball hit her in the left eye.

The hospital examination showed that the retina in her right eye was partially detached.

The doctor quietly asked her, "The ball didn't cause this. Do you often stay up late and rub your eyes, young lady?"

Qi Nian: ?!

Was she going blind?

Oh no! If she'd known, she wouldn't have stayed up late reading novels in the dark! Aaaah!

When she looked up, Jiang Ye seemed even more flustered than the patient herself. The young man clenched his jaw and spoke in a gruff voice.

"I'll cover all the expenses..."

Qi Nian was so embarrassed she could die. She immediately refused. "No, really, it had nothing to do with you."

She never expected this was only the beginning.

The next day, Jiang Ye showed up at her classroom door with an elegant insulated food jar. Inside was pigeon soup that had been simmering for a full three hours. He handed it to her expressionlessly and said only, "It's good for your eyes."

From then on, Qi Nian's life as an "invalid" went completely off course:

She had only just reached for her cup when a warm, dry hand pressed down on her wrist. A firm order came from above her head: "Sit still. Tell me where it is. I'll pour it."

When a boy kindly tried to help her over a threshold, Jiang Ye immediately stepped in front of her, glaring fiercely. "Stay away from her! Can't you see she has trouble with her eyes?"

As soon as the final bell rang, he was sure to appear by her desk on time, pick up her schoolbag, and "escort" her home whether she liked it or not. His excuse was, "To prevent a second accident."

At first, Jiang Ye thought she was a nuisance.

The girl was tiny and thin, and she never seemed to know when to get out of the way. He instinctively assumed she was yet another girl playing games to get close to him. But when he saw her face turn deathly pale, those empty, unfocused eyes, and the diagnosis that read "partially detached retina," an unprecedented panic seized him.

Those words were like a red-hot brand, burning his heart with dread.

Jiang Ye, who feared nothing, had nearly ruined an innocent girl's world.

Responsibility? He accepted it.

He had to see it through until she was fully recovered.

But things soon spiraled far beyond his control.

Watching her fumble as she tried to find her books made his heart feel as though it had been pricked by a needle.

Hearing her quietly gasp when the light was too bright or she was tired made irritation churn in his chest.

Other boys getting close to her? Absolutely not! Who knew what they were after? Her eyes were so fragile. What if something happened again? He had to keep an eye on her himself to feel at ease.

And so Captain Jiang began an unprecedented career as her "caregiver."

He scoured medical forums and health-food recipes, ordering the housekeeper to make a different soup for her every day.

He quietly memorized all her likes and dietary restrictions, filling her drawers only with the finest snacks.

He even grew used to the faint sense of dependence he felt when she had to carefully hold onto his backpack strap on the way home because her vision was blurry.

When he saw her cheeks flush and her grow flustered as he came near, his initial irritation quietly took on a different flavor.

He kept telling himself: once her eyes were better, he would bow out with his duty done.

Until one day, he accidentally heard her in the classroom, speaking to her best friend with a barely perceptible note of sadness.

"The way he acts... it's just guilt, right? Once he's done enough and we're even, will he... leave?"

Jiang Ye froze outside the door, his fists suddenly clenched. An inexplicable anger mixed with a dull ache clogged his chest.

Leave? Who said she could think that?

He had never planned to walk away so easily.

He would see to it that her eyes were healed.

And her... he intended to keep for himself, too.

As for that accursed "guilt"?

It had long since, through day after day of attentive care and constant protection, quietly fermented into a fierce possessiveness that even he had never anticipated.

Coming Soon: My Heart Aches for the Butterfly

Blurb

Delicate, sensitive, and sweetly obedient girl with poor health x calculating, gentle man who's cold on the outside and warm within

Chi Yan is a legend at Nan University.

Born into a prominent family and exceptionally capable, he took charge of the Chi Group the moment he graduated. His name shines on the alumni roster.

His only blemish is that five years ago, the sweet, obedient Yu Miao dumped him.

Her casual "I don't love you anymore" crushed all his pride.

He hated her to the bone.

Five years later, at the Nan University alumni reunion, the top-floor ballroom was filled with elegantly dressed guests.

Chi Yan arrived as the evening's guest of honor, dressed in a bespoke suit, radiating an icy aura and surrounded by admirers.

Then, amid the clinking glasses and lively chatter, he spotted Yu Miao in a corner.

She wore a faded dress and held a cup of warm water. So thin she was almost unrecognizable, she huddled alone in the shadows.

Rage surged in Chi Yan's eyes. He pushed through the crowd and sneered:

"Yu Miao? Can't make it on your own anymore, so you've come here looking for someone else to latch onto?"

Before he could finish, Yu Miao's face turned paper-white. She gasped for breath and crumpled to the ground.

The entire ballroom erupted in commotion.

An ambulance wailed.

Holding her frail body in his arms, Chi Yan finally realized something was wrong.

Outside the emergency room,

a nurse handed him her battered handbag. Medicine bottles and documents were scattered inside.

Anticoagulants, heart medication... On top lay a surgical form for a heart stent. The date of the operation, glaringly clear, was the early morning of the day after they broke up!

At that moment, Chi Yan was completely stunned.

He remembered how pale she had been the night before they broke up, the cold sweat on her forehead. He had assumed she was just feeling guilty...

Once a domineering tycoon who could turn the business world upside down, Mr. Chi became humble and terrified, keeping constant vigil at her bedside.

Later,

he knelt on the carpet, cradled her cold ankles, and slowly pulled a pair of the softest cashmere socks over her feet.

"Miaomiao, lift your foot a little. Don't let them get cold..."

When it was time for her medicine, he could only coax her in a quiet voice:

"Good girl, finish this mouthful and I'll take you to that dessert shop behind the university that you love so much, okay?"

Yu Miao turned her face away, avoiding his reddened eyes. Her voice was weak but clear.

"Chi Yan, I can't accept your pity."

He abruptly tightened his grip around her bony hand and, without giving her a chance to refuse, slipped a priceless diamond ring onto her ring finger.

The cold diamond touched the warmth of her finger, and scalding tears fell onto the back of her hand.

"It's not pity!"

"I'm begging you... the next time you're in pain, give me one chance to stay by your side."

This time, I'll be the one to lower my head. I'll stay with you, year after year.

Theme: Take responsibility for others and for yourself