Deep Spring, Yet You’re Nowhere to Be Seen

[Be warned: this is a tragic ending]

Sixteen-year-old Ye Yumian lies in a hospital bed, listening to the cicadas sing outside year after year. Her youth is split in two: one half is a hospital room that smells of disinfectant, the other a past she can never return to.

The story begins in the last spring of her hospital stay, then unfolds in flashbacks, telling the brief, warm story of a girl’s life. From the strawberry jam cookie she shared in kindergarten to the sour green grapes that made her wince on the elementary school rooftop; from the boy who shouted “See you in middle school!” through an iron gate to the promise the three of them made to step on each other’s shadows on the way home from school: these small, glowing moments come together to form Ye Yumian’s most precious memories.

But fate does not go easy on anyone just because they are young. The sudden death of her best friend, Lin Qianxin, cuts through the lie of the word “forever.” Ye Yumian’s own body is like a lamp flickering in the wind. She secretly goes to see a boy named Chen Zheng, writes “Long time no see” on a piece of paper but doesn’t know how to go on, and makes plans with Shen Yu to go up to the rooftop in summer and finish the letter she never sent. But summer comes, and she doesn’t live to see it.

At the end of the story, Chen Zheng hears her name at a class reunion. He returns to the old neighborhood and climbs up to the rooftop, which has long been locked. The grapevine has withered, the iron gate has rusted, and the little girl who used to wait for him by the door is gone.