[Love That Grows Over Time] [Mutual Salvation] [Reunited After a Long Separation]
For Jian Xingmian, sixteen began with her family spectacularly falling apart.
Dragging her suitcase from the bustling city to a quiet town in the south, she felt as if nothing remained in the world but an endless loneliness.
At the town's only bookstore, she rose onto her tiptoes, struggling to reach a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude on the highest shelf. A hand with long, distinct knuckles reached past her and easily took it down. She turned and met a pair of cool, deep eyes. In that instant, she seemed to see another lonely soul, just as exiled from the world as she was.
*
Lu Chen was the celebrated top student at his new school. His father had died young, and his mother blamed him for every misfortune. His world was an iceberg that never thawed.
Until Jian Xingmian appeared, like a beam of light barging in without a care.
*
As they went from strangers to friends, two lonely hearts gradually drew closer. On the first birthday they celebrated together, she gave him a plain band ring and declared, like a little sun:
"Lu Chen, this is your pass to the future. Take good care of it, okay?"
*
They were the only light in each other's worlds, saving and warming one another.
But the love of youth ultimately couldn't withstand the raging tides of reality. His father's interference was like a sharp blade, severing every future they might have shared.
When they meet again, he is no longer the silent boy he once was. But the ring he has carefully kept for years proves that the light of that summer never truly went out.
*
"Jian Xingmian, is my pass still valid?"
