At seventeen, Xu Niannuan learned for the first time that liking someone really could make your face turn red.
Chu Zheng sat by the window in their tutoring class, with narrow eyes and a quiet manner, as clean and simple as a sketch. She secretly asked around about him, believing her courage to make the first move had won her that love letter. She didn’t know he’d agreed to date her only because he was lonely.
He bought her breakfast, held her hand while they skated, and taught her to kiss in a café. He did everything a boyfriend was supposed to do, so Xu Niannuan naively thought that was all love meant. She knitted him a scarf and folded stars, offering him her whole heart without reservation, never knowing that someone else had always lived in his heart: Bai Han, the girl everyone admired.
The day Bai Han confessed to him, Chu Zheng said to Xu Niannuan:
“I’m sorry. I like someone else.”
From beginning to end, she had only been the girl he picked up and put down on a whim while he was between relationships.
As she grew more and more despondent, lying with her head on her desk, her new deskmate Feng Zan gradually pulled her back into the world. At the same time, Chu Zheng’s gaze slowly returned to her.
He didn’t love her, yet seeing her smile at someone else made his heart ache.
He thought she would always stay right where she was, waiting for him to look back.
But he forgot:
Even the hottest blush will one day fade.
Loving someone had drained every last drop of color from her.
