When the Flowers Fall, Who Knows?

[A poor girl × the pride of heaven, the pinnacle of tragic romance]

She was like a stubborn wild rose, growing in barren soil yet tenaciously reaching for the sun.

She believed that if she ran fast enough, poverty couldn’t catch her; if she stood high enough, the world wouldn’t see her in such a sorry state.

And he was the gentlest breeze of spring, born into a wealthy family, with clear, handsome features and a smile that was always just right.

He was the brightest presence on campus. He had seen her at four in the morning, rubbing her red eyes as she memorized vocabulary, and seen her bite her lip and stubbornly refuse to cry when no one was around.

The feelings they never spoke aloud were like cicadas singing in midsummer, hidden in every glance they exchanged.

But youth, after all, is never made of sweetness alone.

Some stories are destined to become nothing more than a bookmark in the pages of memory.

Years later, Lin Shu stood in the snow in a foreign land and breathed out a cloud of white. She suddenly remembered the boy who had once told her, “Look, put our names together and you get: ‘The ospreys call on the islet in the river. A fair maiden is a fitting bride for a gentleman.’” Meanwhile, as Ju Nanzai leafed through an old textbook, he found a tiny sun she had doodled in the margin of one page.

This is the most painful lesson about growing up: some flowers bloom for only one season; some people stay by your side for only part of the journey.