That summer, Ruan Shengsheng clung to the ambiguous tenderness Ye Feng offered her as if it were a lifeline.
She thought she was special to him, and loved the dazzling boy with a devotion that was both humble and sincere.
Only later did she learn the truth:
She was simply the carefully chosen substitute he turned to when he had nowhere else to put his longing.
“Ruan Shengsheng, you're wonderful, but you'll never be her.”
The truth shattered the innocent beauty of her youth, and the love she never spoke aloud hardened into a wound in her heart that would never heal.
A pursuit that began with a substitute, a love that was never truly acknowledged.
That midsummer, his tenderness wasn't love. It was a storm of heartbreak that only she endured, a lifelong regret.
