A coming-of-age romance about love, growth, and courage.
The story begins in 2010, at the start of their first year of high school. Lin Xianxing, a girl from a county town, is admitted to the honors class at Qianshi Middle School, a school with European-style architecture. Lonely and on her own, she first notices Shen Jibai, a famous former middle-school classmate in the class next door, at the flag-raising ceremony. A small incident involving a borrowed textbook brings their parallel lives quietly closer. A Rubik’s Cube, basketball games, blue sticky notes, and a guitar become their secret signals.
During their three years of high school, they experience choosing between science and humanities, competition-based university recommendations, the deaths of a grandmother and a close friend after serious illnesses, and the anxiety of the college entrance exams. Their feelings for each other grow through moments at the skating rink, a barbecue stall, hospital corridors, and while playing guitar and ukulele together. Lin Xianxing hides each flutter of her heart in her Rubik’s Cube and the fog on car windows. Shen Jibai writes his love into the encouragement notes in his desk drawer, birthday Polaroids, a hug at her graduation banquet, and a dinner he makes by hand before college begins.
When the college entrance exams are over, Lin Xianxing, with a score of 563, decides to study medicine so she can protect the people she loves. Shen Jibai, already admitted to Fudan University, sings her the song “Can’t Say It” to voice the confession he never managed to make. From Yichang to Shanghai, more than 700 kilometers of longing lie between them, and their future stretches far ahead.
This is a gentle love story about “writing time for you,” and a portrait of every young person turning their youth into a love letter.
