“I used the time I had left to kindle a rose that would never wilt.”
[If my life is destined to be brief, I hope to become the brightest firework in your memories.]
Seventeen-year-old Lin Xiaoman’s heart is like a piece of candy past its expiration date, ready to melt in the hands of fate at any moment. The doctor says she won’t live another year, but she smiles and fills her calendar with rainbows. “I’m going to make every day taste like strawberries.”
On her first day at the new school, she grabs a fire extinguisher and sprays Chen Jin, who’s smoking on the rooftop.
“Hey, smoking takes three minutes off your life.”
“Perfect. I think my life’s too long.”
One is a world-weary boy, burned down to the last ember. The other is a blazing soul determined to live in the face of death.
She secretly repairs the competition application he tore up and tucks hand-drawn comic strips into his textbooks. He beats up the punks harassing her, only to find her blood staining the wrapper of a strawberry candy in the infirmary.
“Chen Jin, you look so ugly when you cry.”
“Shut up. I’m not crying... I got fire-extinguisher foam in my eyes.”
When the red light outside the operating room goes dark, Chen Jin receives the cake voucher she ordered: “Congratulations on graduating! From Lin Xiaoman, after 1,987 days.” And inside a copy of The Little Prince in the library, he finds her final letter: “The rose has withered, but its fragrance will live on in every breath you take.”
The most painful bad ending isn’t death. It’s finally learning to love this world, only to find that you’ve become the one regret it left me.
(Reader warning ✨: Grab three boxes of tissues. The emotional fallout hits harder than the painkillers the heroine sneaks.)
