The Galaxy Is Not So Far Away

Lu Weiyun, 28, is an editor at a publishing house: lively and quick-witted, except that once she starts drinking, she can’t keep her mouth shut.

At a class reunion, she’s forced to raise a glass to He Zhiyao, her longtime crush of ten years, now an engineer at an aerospace institute. On a whim, she blurts out, “God He, I hear the sows at your institute are prettier than the goddesses. How about settling for me?”

The room falls deathly silent.

He Zhiyao calmly unbuttons his cuff, then holds his phone screen up in front of her. Pinned at the top of his WeChat is the unmistakable label: [My Aerospace Spouse (1/1)].

Her ten-year unrequited crush turns out to have been mutual all along.

One is a junior editor from a family of scholars, the other a chief engineer born into an aerospace family. One gets by on people skills, the other conquers the stars with technology. From deskmates in middle school to partners for life, from class reunions to rocket launches, they prove with a long-distance relationship spanning 1,300 kilometers that the best kind of love is this: you chase your sea of stars, and I’ll be your mission control on the ground.

Also known as: The Years We Secretly Loved Each Other but Neither Dared to Say So; The Buns in the Aerospace Institute Cafeteria Are Really Good; and The Story of How My Mom and Mother-in-Law Argued in the Family Chat for Three Years Before Finally Making Peace.

Love grows quietly over time, amid the everyday warmth of life. The stars and the sea are all you.