When the Wind Rises in a Small Town

In Yunxi County in 2015, a chance encounter at the end-of-summer market made Qi Yang remember Tian Wei, the girl in a light blue dress with gardenias embroidered on the cuffs. Clutching the change he hadn’t spent on a basketball, he searched the market for her for a whole month. Then, on the day he went to enroll at vocational school, they met again in front of the application form for the E-Commerce program. Without hesitation, Qi Yang chose the same major as her, just so he could be a little closer.

Beneath their camouflage uniforms during military training, he saved her a shady spot and brought her ice water. He accompanied her singing “Meeting” with his unpracticed guitar playing, and finally confessed the feelings he had kept in his heart onstage at the school arts festival. In their E-Commerce classes, they practiced typing together, learned photo editing, and imagined the online shops they would run someday. Their days were as sweet as freshly picked peaches at the market. But all that happiness was quietly crushed by Qi Yang’s childhood friend, Luo Hao. Hiding his own feelings for Tian Wei, he used the excuse of being Qi Yang’s “brother” to badmouth her to him, while finding reasons to get close to her himself. He made misunderstandings between them grow unchecked.

After a year of breaking up and getting back together, Tian Wei’s explanations were dismissed as excuses. Heartbroken, she lied that she had a new boyfriend, hoping to make Qi Yang come to his senses. She never imagined that this act of spite would send them down irreconcilable paths.