Wherever You Go, I'll Go

People say the name Lin Ku is ill-omened. How could a withered tree ever see spring?

She has lived for seventeen years, and long ago carved "I'm not good enough" into her bones. At home, she's a burden; at school, she's a walking target. Even her own body is slowly rotting away. Her medical records are hidden at the very bottom of her schoolbag, like the silence she's kept for seventeen years.

Then one day, a boy sat beside her. His name was Lu Fengchun.

He turned her name into a line of poetry: "The east wind brings plum and willow; even a withered tree finds spring." He helped her with her studies, spent New Year's Eve with her, and held her hand amid a sky full of fireworks as he said, "I'll wait for you." He told her she wasn't running away. She told him she liked him.

But she'd forgotten: the spring a withered tree finds is always borrowed.

The day she looked down from the 26th floor, he sent her one last message:

"Turn around. I'm right here."

My life had withered for so long, and I found spring just once.

Later, spring died, and so did the withered tree.

They say this isn't a happy ending, but I think it was the best ending for them.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.