Chen Huai is seventeen years old and lives in an old building full of cracks.
My mother kept mumbling at the dinner table, "What should I do if I don't pass the exam?" And knocked on the door late at night and said, "It doesn't matter if I don't pass the exam." My father peeled apples like potatoes, wore cracked slippers, and worked as a quality inspector in the factory for twenty-three years. Everything in the house had signs of repair—the chipped rim of the bowl, the cracks in the soles of the shoes, the dry river on the ceiling. They loved him in a way that left him breathless.
He stood on the sixth floor balcony for ten seconds and finally stepped back.
It's not because he figured something out, it's just because - three seconds is too short, there is no time to say goodbye, and he is not even sure whether he wants to die or not live like this anymore.
No earth-shattering suffering. There is only day after day of talking, silence, making do, and a love that is as dusty as an old rag, with dirty water after twisting.
Someone bloomed flowers in the ruins, but Chen Huai just learned to coexist with the tree in his chest.
Concept: The pain of not being seen