Vodka and Mandheling

A simple yet complicated romance between two men whose worlds could not be more different.

Zhu Jingru, the charismatic owner of a bohemian bar, lives like a wandering spirit—bold, restless, here one second and gone the next. Bai Qinglin, the reserved barista of the elegant café across the street, is his opposite in every way: disciplined, distant, and content within the quiet walls he’s built around himself.

Their paths cross on an ordinary morning over coffee, but something in Bai’s careful stillness sparks a fascination Zhu can’t shake. What begins as curiosity turns into deliberate courtship: calculated encounters disguised as coincidence, small gestures that accumulate like falling snow. Zhu coaxes warmth from a man who seems untouched by desire, one whose acknowledgments come only in glances held a moment too long, in silences that say everything.

Yet Bai is not unmoved. Beneath the ice lies a hunger he’s spent years suppressing, a longing sharpened by Zhu’s persistence. The more Zhu pushes, the harder Bai tries to hold his ground—until resistance becomes impossible.

A story of patient pursuit and the slow unraveling of emotional defences, Vodka and Mandheling shows how love arrives where it’s least expected—and transforms everything.

Original Novel
Official English