When the Fog Rises, You Are Here

In the autumn of 1997, the mountain city was shrouded in mist. Twelve-year-old Su Yanshi walked from the Su family hamlet to the town's middle school. At the back door of a classroom, he saw Yang Wanxing for the first time. The ponytailed girl’s smile was like sunlight breaking through the fog, lighting up his quiet, insecure teenage years.

He was a poor student from a remote mountain village; she was the cherished daughter of a local factory owner. For three years, he sat in the last row and stole glances at her. When it came time for the high school entrance exam, he turned down a place at the city’s top school despite earning the highest score in the whole school, and applied to the ordinary high school she had casually chosen, just so he could keep seeing her. Fate rewarded him: throughout their three years of high school, they sat together.

He helped her with her studies and tucked boiled eggs into his pockets to bring to school. She happily took his kindness for granted, but whenever he was bullied, she defended him without hesitation. Neither of them ever said what was on their minds, but everyone knew only a thin sheet of paper separated them. Evenings beneath the camphor trees, fireworks on New Year’s Eve, the copy of Ordinary World she gave him, the red sachet he gave her: they hid their purest affection in those little moments.

The college entrance exam was a watershed. He got into Fudan University and went to Shanghai, while she spent a year retaking the exam before heading to Chengdu. They exchanged letters, one a month. But the distance was too great and life too busy. His letters grew shorter, while her wait grew longer. Afraid of distracting her from her studies, he didn’t dare write more. Thinking his feelings had faded, she didn’t dare ask. Later, a boy named Tang Xuan’an appeared in her life, pursuing her with open and ardent affection. She waited a long time and wrote for a long time, until she finally knew those letters would never come again.

In 2007, news arrived that she was getting married…