Unfrozen Harbor

[Content Warnings]

1. Spans a long period: from school to the workplace (lawyer x doctor), including an eight-year separation.

2. Pseudo-incest: stepbrothers from a blended family, with no blood relation.

3. Emotional angst: missing for eight years with their fate unknown, a tense reunion, and psychological trauma on both sides.

4. Slow burn and push-pull: the relationship develops slowly, with mutual feelings only becoming clear in the middle-to-late story.

5. Mystery plot: the truth behind a fire, the mystery of a disappearance, and a family conspiracy.

6. Imperfect characters: the protagonists have flaws, and the story includes depictions of stomach illness, kidnapping, violence, and more.

Song Yuzhi's world froze over completely after the great fire when he was seventeen. His mother died, and his younger brother disappeared. He buried all his emotions and guilt beneath the facade of a perfect student, until He Wenye, the transfer student who was always trying to melt his defenses with a smile, unexpectedly entered his reconstituted family.

He Wenye remembered every warmth: the pallor of his older brother's face when his stomach hurt, the safety charm his mother had left behind, the blurry traces of stars engraved on a music box. The only thing he had forgotten was who he was. As the fragments of his memory gradually came together, he discovered that he was not a biological son of the Song family, but a pawn caught up in a wealthy family's feud. To protect those he cherished, he walked toward his kidnappers' vehicle on a cold night, then vanished from the world without a trace.

Eight years passed.

Song Yuzhi became a sharp-tongued “ice blade” lawyer in the courtroom. The old wooden box he carried with him held his last remaining memories, and his stomach ailment never left him. Thousands of miles away, He Wenye struggled to survive, turning “cure his stomach” into an obsession. Under a new identity, He Ming, he entered medical school.

The gears of fate meshed once more in late autumn.

Under the lights of the emergency room, He Wenye, dressed in a white coat, met the eyes of Song Yuzhi, whose stomach ailment had flared up. Shock, anger, and the weight of eight years apart exploded amid the smell of disinfectant.

“You chose this.” Song Yuzhi left him with that icy judgment, then turned and walked away.

“I'm back, and I'm never leaving again.” He Wenye wiped away his tears, gripped the safety charm he had lost and found again, and knocked on the door of a luxury apartment.

Their disguises fell away, their scars were laid bare, and the shadow of old conspiracies still lingered. The mysterious “second group” behind the downfall of the Shen family, the faint clues leading to a mine in the northwest, Gu Wenyan's pent-up anger and guilt after eight years of searching... All the unfinished business stirred like undercurrents.

And on this chilly autumn night, He Wenye slipped barefoot into the master bedroom, using a plaintive “I'm cold” as an excuse to crawl into Song Yuzhi's bed. In the darkness before dawn, Song Yuzhi finally reached out and pulled the warmth he had found again tightly into his arms.

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