Starlight in the Depths of the Mire

Zhou Sa was once the most pathetic and most ruthless delinquent girl in the vocational school district.

She had fought her way through abandoned buildings, knowing only the iron rule of answering violence with violence. Fighting and collecting protection money were the only ways she knew to survive.

Until Ruan Xingyao, the arrogant top student who transferred in, repeatedly blocked her baseball bat with a book of wrong answers, then sat on the parallel bars and folded pink stars again and again.

She hated Zhou Sa's prickly temper.

Zhou Sa scoffed, but really did put away the short baton that could break ribs. She suppressed her rebellious instincts just so she could lie on the sports field every day and watch Ruan Xingyao fold a jarful of colorful stars.

She even tried to act like a good student, awkwardly putting on a white school uniform, happily believing that if she just stopped causing trouble, Ruan Xingyao would stay by her side forever.

Until the school bully, in a bid to claim the only recommendation slot for university, cornered them in an alley with more than a dozen iron bars.

She thought she could keep Ruan Xingyao safe, but could only watch as her right hand was broken and she fell into the mire.

That day, the rain poured down. On an abandoned rooftop, Zhou Sa's fingers were crushed beneath a heavy weight as she clung desperately to Ruan Xingyao, who was hanging in midair. With hands torn and bloody, she hauled Ruan Xingyao back from the brink of death.

But after the rain stopped, Zhou Sa could no longer see that spotless figure in the empty classroom.

It turned out Ruan Xingyao had taken all the blame for cheating, bearing the disgrace of expulsion in exchange for a clean record for Zhou Sa.

"Do you want to go to college?"

"I just want her to come back."

Ten years later, gang fights had vanished from the vocational school district.

There was only a bookstore, its windows and shelves filled with paper stars that shimmered in fluorescent colors.

A breeze drifted by, and they went patter, patter.

Just like back then, when she still sat on the parallel bars.

[Vocational School Delinquent Girl vs. Top Student Transfer]

[Reunited After a Breakup] [Mutual Redemption] [Youth and School Life] [Rising from the Bottom]

Theme: Oppose all forms of school bullying