Orange Summer Candy

At seventeen, Wen Yan is the student everyone expects to get into one of China's top universities. The scratch of his pen across the paper is as clear as a breeze in the sunlight.

At thirty, silver has crept into his temples, and he can't bring himself to open the hospital room door. She's lying inside, waiting for a miracle that will never come.

Wen Zhi knows her brother's life began to fall apart the first time Lin Weiwei said tearfully, “My family won't let me go to school.” She wants to go back, back to that sun-drenched senior-year classroom, and stop the carefully planned destruction before it begins.

But when her dying consciousness is lifted by a faint, sweet scent of oranges, she opens her eyes to find someone already waiting at the other end of time.

He never explains why he's always by her side, but when rumors turn against her, he shields her from every cruel word. He presses orange candies to his chest so that when she's sad, he can quietly slip one into her palm, a sweetness that never melts. In the music room, he plays “Clair de Lune” while she peels an orange, its sweet fragrance twining with the notes like a silent confession.

He isn't a bystander to fate. He is her anchor through time.

When the steady drip of the IV suddenly slows, the smell of disinfectant fades, and the fresh scent of camphor trees drifts into the classroom, she finally understands: he has been waiting for her to come back all along.

This time, she will protect him.

This time, together, they will live their seventeen-year-old lives without a stain.