Spring arrived at Qingzhen No. 1 High School, and transfer student Wu Xuegang took the seat beside Liao Xiaojia.
He was cold and withdrawn, keeping everyone at arm’s length. She was sunny and cheerful, kind to everyone. People said they came from different worlds, but no one knew she had secretly watched him run all semester, or that he had quietly helped her with math right up until graduation.
They were each other’s unspoken secret, the most familiar of strangers. Though only an aisle separated them, they seemed to stand an entire youth apart.
On the day of the college entrance exam, he left her a note: “Liao Xiaojia, I like you.”
She never got the chance to read it.
Six hours later, her grandmother was critically ill. Three months later, he lost contact with his father. Four years later, she was teaching in a remote mountain village while he studied in Beijing. Five years later, she was teaching at a middle school in Guiyang, and he returned to the city.
On a winter day six years later, he stood onstage at an education forum while she sat in the last row.
The moment their eyes met, time turned back to their second year of high school. He passed her a sheet of scrap paper that read: “Stop crying.”
This time, he was the one who cried. “I’ve been looking for you for six years.”
This is a story about secret love, missed chances, and reunion. The greatest regret of youth isn’t loving someone who doesn’t love you back. It’s loving each other and neither of you daring to say it first.
