He Tamed the Light, but Now the Light Has Tamed Him

Jiangchuan No. 1 High School, Liberal Arts and Science Divisions. Each division has its own remarkable student: Tang Jiaojiao, the icy beauty who always tops the liberal arts rankings, and Zhou Yijun, the science prodigy already guaranteed admission to Jiangchuan University. Almost everyone thinks these two will clash someday. But only Tang Jiaojiao knows that the silver chain around her neck, engraved with the initials ZYJ, is like the invisible reins Zhou Yijun fastened around her a year ago. It was a prize from an English competition, but also a warning. The boy pressed his fountain pen against her report card: "Second in the whole city? How could you make such a basic mistake?" The blinds in the liberal arts lab are always drawn at dusk, and drafts of calculus problems are tucked into yellowed poetry collections. Tang Jiaojiao can recite her speech from memory and deliver it fluently in front of the entire school. In a corner where no one can see, that speech has been revised countless times by Zhou Yijun, while Tang Jiaojiao stands before him, arguing until her throat is raw. Tears mingle with sweat as she hones her performance. On the day of the math competition, Tang Jiaojiao deliberately gets the third question wrong. When the school broadcast announces that Zhou Yijun has won an exchange opportunity at another school, he clutches his certificate and rushes into the downpour. In an empty classroom, he catches the runaway copying his name over and over. "Why?" "You taught me," she says, handing him her dry clothes. "Real light finds its own way through the cracks in a prism. I found mine." ["When I charge toward a cliff, I don't need someone to gently embrace me. I need someone to forge chains and wrestle with me."]