Awakening to First Love

Chen Mo was helping his father sort scrap metal at the junkyard when he ran into Lin Wan, the new student repeating her final year of high school.

In the pouring rain, she was wrapping a stray cat in her school uniform.

Her soaked sketchbook lay open on the ground. Every page showed his profile as he pedaled his bike.

“It doesn’t look like me,” he said, kicking aside a rusty bike frame. “I never give anyone a ride on the back.”

Only later did he learn that Lin Wan, who had earned a guaranteed place at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, was repeating the year because of a bet.

When an anonymous letter exposed their relationship, Lin Wan tore up her admission ticket to Tsinghua’s Academy of Arts and Design.

“Chen Mo, the scholarship matters more than my future.”

Ten years later, at an art exhibition, he came face to face with the painting "A Bicycle and the Moon at Seventeen".

On the back seat of the bicycle beneath the moonlight sat a girl in a school uniform.