Wear Flowers for Love

Shen Zhili opens her eyes eight years earlier, at the point when Jiang Xianzhou hated her most. In the life she already lived, she looked down on where he came from and insulted him openly and often, until he turned cold and began hitting back, and the two of them wore each other down through years of love tangled with resentment before anything settled. She knows all of it, and she decides this time to go at him directly. She drops her pride and makes her feelings plain, showing up, saying warm things, trying to hold on to him before the damage starts. Jiang Xianzhou has no idea why she has changed and treats every gesture as a trap. He puts distance between them and keeps his guard up. Xie Yuchi, who wanted her in the previous life, works his way into the gap and makes the approach harder. Her efforts come out clumsy, badly timed, sometimes embarrassing, but when he is threatened she puts herself between him and it. They argue constantly and stay close anyway, and the wall he built starts thinning at the places where she keeps pushing.