"Love and goodbye both take courage."
That summer, during military training at sixteen, a single glimpse beneath the blazing sun etched Yang Xi's name across Pei Yizhen's entire youth.
He was her military training instructor in her first year of high school, as well as the dazzling senior who chose to repeat a year because his grades weren't good enough.
She tucked her feelings away in the chat window for history questions, in the few seconds they crossed paths during morning runs, and in a confession letter she never dared to check for a reply.
But whenever they met in real life, her inferiority complex wound around her heart like a vine, leaving her only able to hide in a corner and gaze up at his light.
Only after he graduated and left did she send that 1,300-character confession in the dead of night. But the moment he replied, she fled in a panic. She didn't dare read his response, not because she feared rejection, but because she feared her grand, one-sided crush would come to an end.
She thought this was the right way to love someone: quietly, with restraint, expecting nothing in return.
That was, until the winter she turned twenty-one, when Lu Youyou asked her, "Have you ever considered that you've confused liking him with bringing this crush to an end?"
Only then did she realize that what held her captive was no longer that person, but her own insistence that everything had to end perfectly.
In the seventh year of her crush, she finally told herself: You can graduate from this crush now.
Theme: Through a long, unrequited crush, a young woman learns to accept herself and make peace with her youth, with the support of her friends. In the end, she understands that sincerely loving someone and gracefully saying goodbye to that love are both gifts that growing up gives her.
