Lin Wei, the “ice-cold class monitor and top student,” and Jiang Yu, the “notorious school bully,” were bitter enemies amid the fierce competition of senior year. He mocked her as a “slave to the rules,” while she denounced him as “society’s trash.” He tore up her record of classroom duty; she reported his truancy. He swore, “I’d rather die than like a bookworm,” and she vowed, “Just breathing the same air as a jerk disgusts me.” Then a rainstorm trapped them together in a dark equipment room. Beneath their soaked uniforms, the boy glimpsed the bruises on her collarbone from working odd jobs, while the girl heard him humming the lullaby his mother had left behind. The chaos of being forced to work together on the school anniversary celebration became a crack through which they glimpsed each other’s souls. He climbed over the wall to buy medicine and stayed up all night while she burned with a fever; she stayed up organizing key exam material and filled his desk with it. He pawned his mother’s keepsakes to cover her mother’s surgery costs; she put up her scholarship money to save his dying startup dream. When Jiang Yu’s father slapped a check down in Lin Wei’s face, and Tang Zhe’s gentle trap arrived wrapped in a diamond shell, the former rivals found themselves on the brink of betrayal. At last, they saw the truth: they had long since become teammates fighting back to back.
From confrontations in the hallway to a proposal in the hospital room, from a soda-can tab to a wedding ring set with their class emblem: “Catch me!” At the graduation dance, Lin Wei fell in a white gown, and Jiang Yu ripped his suit as he grabbed the safety rope. As the whole school gasped, he kissed the bride in his arms and laughed softly. “I couldn’t catch you on the rooftop back then. This time, I’ve got you.” Below the stage, Jiang Yu’s mother placed a family heirloom jade bangle on Lin Wei’s wrist. Su Qing’s daughter bounced around clutching the old classroom-duty armband, while a bouquet held by Wen Ya traveled across seven years and landed in the hands of a girl she had never met.
