Lend Me Half a Spring Day

What does it feel like to spend your entire youth chasing someone's silhouette?

Xin Jia submitted a one-of-a-kind answer to that question.

From the moment she began writing her answer to the day it was read and brought to a close, Xin Jia spent a full twelve years on it.

That afternoon, on the Spring Equinox, it rained in Mingcheng. Under the gloomy sky, the bare trees, still without a leaf or branch, made the beginning of spring feel desolate and still, with none of the vitality of years past. Xin Jia sat on the windowsill, swinging her legs and listlessly holding her speech notes, with nothing to do. "This spring is really hard to feel happy about." But that spring, Bo Yi walked through the door and became the only splash of color on the first day of spring that year, the person Xin Jia had spent her entire school life unable to forget, chasing after all the while.

After eight long years apart, they met again at the airport.

In a noisy private room, colored lights swayed back and forth. Someone at the table, oblivious to the mood, brought up a joke from their youth.

"Xin Jia, did you ever like Bo Yi back then?"

"That was in the past."

Years later, Xin Jia was no longer hung up on what had happened. She had begun to live her own life with conviction, while Bo Yi, once her "moon in the sky," now stared back at her with bloodshot eyes.

The spring the heavens owed Xin Jia that year was finally given back to her in full in the years that followed.