Embroidered Summer

Seventeen-year-old Wen Yang has two secrets:

1. She can't hear the cicadas with her right ear.

2. She likes Zhou Jin from Class 7, Grade 11.

Wen Yang: The quietest top student at school. Her collar is always buttoned to the top, and her long hair always covers her right ear.

Zhou Jin: A troubled boy who has transferred schools three times. He has hard fists, a fierce drawing style, and always smells of lighter fluid.

They should have had nothing to do with each other...

Until he knocks her notebook to the ground, the wind blows her hair aside, and he discovers her hearing loss.

Until she finds that his sketchbook is full of burning fire engines, each dated on the day his father died in the line of duty.

"Wen Yang, your dad put out fires, and I start them. Were we made for each other?"

He smiles as he lights a match, its glow illuminating her still, lifeless eyes.

"Zhou Jin, the fire in your drawings can kill people," she says softly. "But your eyes burn even hotter than fire."

Seven years later, they meet again. He is a suspect in a string of arson cases, and she is an investigator chasing the truth.

"Between us, we'll either rust away into ash together, or be reborn in the flames."

"If our youth was destined to rust away, I'd rather be the scar you carved into me with your own hands."