In the summer of 2023, Xia Zhixu made a wish at Yonghe Temple: "I hope Chen Yanlin and I can spend more time together."
The good news: her wish came true.
The bad news: wishes made at Yonghe Temple come with a random catch, and Chen Yanlin became her stepbrother.
The love she never confessed became a secret that went nowhere. She thought time would make it fade, and that nobody would ever know.
But she hadn't counted on Xie Wangshu seeing through her.
She wanted to add a little sweetness to her hopeless crush, so she often found excuses to ask Chen Yanlin for help with her studies. Whenever she did, Xie Wangshu would show up, eyes half-lidded and a lazy smile on his face as he watched her. "Your deskmate is top of the grade. Why don't you ask him?"
Xia Zhixu thought Xie Wangshu was an obstacle in her pursuit of her crush. He saw through her and brought out the side hidden beneath her composed exterior. But she didn't dislike him. On the contrary, she found herself wanting to get closer to him.
As graduation approached, the school organized a field trip for the senior class. She overheard Chen Yanlin and a girl agreeing to attend the same university.
Xie Wangshu came to stand beside her, wearing that lazy smile. "Xia Zhixu, find someone else to like."
She didn't answer. Instead, she went and bought a strip of red silk, then wrote on it: "From this moment, one cry brings fame; may we gaze at each other from the clouds above."
Xie Wangshu didn't know that she had stopped liking Chen Yanlin long ago.
Theme: The right person will stand in the way of your future
