『Plum Rains Falling on an Endless Summer』
If you can, please do not leave in the summer. Otherwise, the one left behind will be trapped forever in the damp plum rains, never to see the clear sun again. His name is Xie Tingyun. One of the Federation's three Marshals, an elite Alpha whose pheromones carry the scent of ebony plum wine. That fragrance has long lost the crisp sweetness of his youth; now it tastes only of tart bitterness, like an echo dried out by the passing years, never to turn sweet again. At forty-five, his features remain breathtakingly refined. The sharp, striking beauty unique to an Alpha has not been dulled by time; instead, it has been tempered into an even deeper, icy stillness. Yet beneath his eyes lies a brooding gloom that thirty years could not disperse. His presence is like aged bitter wine—rich, lingering, yet harsh enough to catch in your throat. He was once married. His partner passed away nearly thirty years ago on a summer day just as the plum rains were about to fall—a sudden illness, a hurried parting. An ungiven ring, a photograph never taken, a video never recorded in time. That final glimpse has replayed again and again, becoming a broken fragment branded into his very soul. Someone remained forever in that summer, while someone else never walked out of those impending plum rains. It was not that he never thought of following in death. But he could not. His partner had left behind a young brother, and aging parents at home. And so, relying on an empty shell hollowed of its soul, he reined in all sorrow, joy, love, and hate, living like a mannequin carved to exact measurements—rigorous, restrained, and utterly flawless. No one knows how he endured every rut without any soothing comfort. He threw away not a single piece of his partner's clothing, even recreating an approximation of their pheromones based on the faint, lingering scent in his memory, just to find a shred of solace. It is not that he refuses to move on. It is simply that the grief was too torrential, long since turning into an endless plum rain that has drizzled incessantly in his heart for thirty full years. Thirty years—long enough to frost dark hair with snow, turning prime years into twilight. "With only my longing alone... how am I supposed to forget the past that belonged to the two of us?"