A Second Spring Breeze

A masked regular always visits the little restaurant on rainy days, when hardly anyone else comes by. He sits down, sweeping his robe aside, his imposing frame as still as a mountain. “A bowl of Golden Crumble Rice.” Yu Yan discreetly studies the scars the edges of his mask cannot hide, as well as his strong, muscular shoulders and arms. She piles plenty of toppings onto his Golden Crumble Rice. “Will you come tomorrow afternoon? I’ll give you an extra-large bowl, free of charge.” Behind the mask, his eyes are sharp as a hawk’s. “You’ll scare off your other customers.” “There won’t be any customers tomorrow, just lots of… troublemaking thugs.” She had recently divorced and was running the place on her own. Every few days she had to deal with hoodlums, not to mention her ex-husband’s harassment. She had been thinking of hiring a bodyguard for ages. The regular looked like he could handle himself. After hearing her out, he said in a low voice, “All right.” Who would have thought that one meal could hire her a bodyguard who had clawed his way out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood? He dealt with the trouble effortlessly without so much as turning over a table or chair. * Later, on another day of torrential rain, the little restaurant was as quiet as ever. The regular, who had not visited in a long while, took off his mask. The frightening scars were gone. Beneath it, he had striking brows and bright eyes, and a rare, heroic bearing. For some reason, Yu Yan felt a little nervous. “Still… a bowl of Golden Crumble Rice?” Xu Xing lowered his eyes, forcing his gaze away from her lips. “I’m afraid that won’t be enough anymore.” * When Xu Xing was at his lowest, a girl from the neighboring household brought him a steaming bowl of Golden Crumble Rice through a dog hole in the wall. For ten years at the border, he lived by the blade, and countless times he found himself remembering its taste. The girl was wonderful, and she already had a promising fiancé. Xu Xing was not worthy of her. He could only remember her kindness. Later, covered in military honors and scars, he was transferred back to the capital and saw her walking alone in the street, crying. Only then did he gradually realize that someone else was the one who was unworthy. Reader Advisory: 1. The heroine is not a virgin, while the hero is. After loving the wrong person, she gets a fresh start. The romance between the leads begins only after her divorce. 2. This is a fictional setting, so please don’t nitpick the historical details. Food is just a garnish; at heart, this is a love story. Theme: Never give up on the possibility of becoming a better person.