In a small Lingnan town in the late 1980s, the chirping of cicadas hid the youth code of two teenagers. Chen Kaichen was an ordinary high school student until he met Lin Liping, who always liked to wear floral skirts - she would secretly draw poinciana trees in math class, teach him to write love letters using Hong Kong and Taiwan novels from "Reader's Digest", and even secretly stuff imported stationery from home into his schoolbag. Together they shared salt water popsicles at the corner of Luluo Lane, built a "Great Wall" with scraps of rubber on the iron-framed desk, and burst into laughter watching the open-air movie "Shaolin Temple" at the Pearl River Swimming Pool. When phoenix flowers covered the graduation runway, Lin Liping walked towards the neon lights of Victoria Harbor with her Hong Kong ferry ticket, while Chen Kaichen touched the hot BP machine for the first time in his father's noodle shop. This novel uses paper cranes, glass soda bottles and Yangcheng Evening News clippings to weave an epic story of a generation's growth in the cracks between the planned economy and the market economy - those life lessons that have never been taught are hidden under the classroom walls with green flowers climbing on them.
