You Are the Tangerine Glow of the Setting Sun

At the secluded Linjiang No. 1 High School, transfer student Jiang Chi is like a cold, hard pebble dropped into Lin Ju’s calm, undisturbed life. When the class rearranges its seating, they become desk mates. Out of an instinct to win people over, Lin Ju tries her best to use her sunshine to melt the iceberg, but keeps running into a wall. Two equally lonely hearts cautiously draw closer in silence.

They share a pair of earphones and listen to a song in the classroom during lunch break. When Lin Ju secretly sheds tears because she can’t solve a math problem, he silently slides a sheet of scrap paper covered in detailed steps across to her.

But insecure Lin Ju doesn’t dare believe in their feelings, and labels all his tenderness as pity. Proud Jiang Chi, meanwhile, doesn’t know how to express his love in words. It is as if a pane of frosted glass stands between them: they can see the hazy shapes and light, but cannot touch its true warmth.

On the eve of the college entrance exams, pressure from their families and studies erupts alongside a massive misunderstanding, and their already fragile trust collapses in an instant. A heated argument and a few cruel words neither of them means become the last things they say to each other in their youth. In the end, Lin Ju performs poorly on the exams, while Jiang Chi leaves without a word to study abroad.

Years later, Lin Ju is a trainee book editor. The author of the first book she is working on is none other than Jiang Chi, now a modestly renowned illustrator. They meet again in the publisher’s conference room.

He takes her to see his solo exhibition. At the far end of the gallery is an entire wall bearing just one painting: the profile of a girl quietly seated at a desk bathed in sunlight. The painting is titled Oranges.