All Things Given to Darkness

[Dissociative identities + transformation + bipolar disorder + childhood friends + reunion after a long separation + a bet + showbiz] A story about a heroine with four-in-one dissociative identities × a calm, gentle, twisted musician. Bai Jin’s personality changes every three years: a 14-year-old classical dance prodigy, a 17-year-old ultra-competitive national table tennis player, a 20-year-old art history student with autism, and a 23-year-old aloof fashion designer. The heroine transforms when triggered by the people and things she hates most. Everything is Bai Jin; everything is black. The book alternates between childhood and adulthood in three-chapter arcs: three chapters of childhood, then three of adulthood. They meet in midsummer, and the young boy and girl fall for each other. The boy remembers the girl’s name. Looking at the boy in his white shirt, the girl chides him for not planting a single black rose among the countless red ones. They meet again in the dead of winter. The boy has taken the stage beneath a blaze of dazzling lights, and at last the girl learns his name. Against odds of one in several billion, the boy finds her again. They feel what the other feels. As they bet against their shared enemy, grow together, and save each other, they fall in love. They are the best of friends, the ones who understand each other most, and each other’s counterpart in the universe. It is not black falling in love with white, nor a bird falling in love with a fish. It is black falling in love with black, white with white, birds with birds, and fish with fish.