Xu Xue has two secrets.
First, Qi Ye, the top student in their grade, isn’t as aloof and self-restrained as he seems. After evening study, he sneaks out over the school wall to stream esports. His username is “Ye Ye,” and his fans call him “God Qi.”
Second, Qi Ye has a secret of his own: he remembers every gift Xu Xue has ever given him.
It began on the first day of their freshman-year class assignment, when she cheerfully handed him a milk candy.
Then she noticed the cuff of his school uniform was worn through and gave him a pair of cuff links.
Then she learned he lived alone and brought him a thermos full of steaming dumplings on his birthday.
The home she wants to escape is the very thing he longs for but can never have.
The bonds she fights so hard to break are the ties he yearns to possess.
Later, someone asked Qi Ye when he fell for Xu Xue.
He thought for a moment. “Maybe every time she smiled and said, ‘I’m fine.’”
There was so much hidden beneath that smile, and he understood it all.
And he wanted to be the one who made it so she never had to smile and say, “I’m fine” again.
