Time is a long wind that swept away the childhood and adolescence Gu Cheng and Luo Qingyi spent side by side.
He was like a paper kite breaking free of its string, drifting toward the horizon, higher and higher, until his silhouette merged with the dazzling light;
She was like a lone boat without an anchor, bobbing in the deep sea, pushed by the waves toward a blue expanse with no visible end.
One wandered among the clouds, the other tossed about amid the waves.
The ways of the world were like trade winds, and ideals like ocean currents, driving them toward opposite ends of the earth. They kept missing each other: at crossroads of choice, at docks of departure, in every moment when they could have run toward one another.
Yet even when the world stretched into vast emptiness and the road ahead had no shore,
some bonds were anchors sunk deep into fate.
Whenever he bent down, he could always see that undying glimmer on the sea;
Whenever she looked up, she could always gaze at that shining star in the sky.
Their lives were a paper kite and a lone boat gazing at each other from afar,
two lines of poetry that could never find a rhyme,
a long, tender story of missed chances between wind and sea.
Theme: Using the imagery of a paper kite and a lone boat, this story explores the eternal questions of ideals and worldly concerns, drifting and attachment. Through the two protagonists watching and missing each other amid the currents of fate, it portrays the loneliness and tenderness of individuals facing their times and their choices.
