You're Too Sweet to Be Allowed

Everyone at the compound knew that Nian Shu hated Qiao Ye. It started when Qiao Ye trampled the paper airplane she had just folded, and continued through high school, when he beat her on every exam. That guy was practically the jinx of Cheng Youyou's life. He was in charge of the icy stares, she was in charge of the arguing. Their daily routine was either arguing or on their way to argue. But who could have guessed that this seemingly aloof, actually childish guy was a double-standard menace behind closed doors? When Nian Shu casually mentioned craving candied hawthorn, he would quietly buy two skewers, hand her one, and claim he had gotten the other for himself "while he was at it." When someone bullied her, he rushed in faster than anyone, then stubbornly insisted afterward that he had only been "defending the honor of our neighborhood." Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Nian Shu found him waiting beneath the old pagoda tree by her house. And what was Qiao Ye holding in his hand? A white rose? "Nian Shu," he said, his eyes darting away, his ears red as blood. "From now on, don't argue with anyone else. Just focus on arguing with me."