Listening to Winter

Listening to Winter

That day, in a pitch-black, deserted alley, Wen Dingling found a boy as filthy as a stray dog and brought him home.

No one knew how happy and excited she had been that night.

She couldn't sleep a wink.

Wen Dingling had secretly loved Yan Che for three years, both when he was the dazzling genius at A High, winning countless competitions, and after the Yan family threw him out and he was left destitute and disheartened.

Wen Dingling lived alone in the little house her father had left her. It was small, but it kept out the wind and rain.

It had only one bedroom and one bed. She gave the only bed to Yan Che and curled up on the sofa with the one thin blanket she had left.

That winter was bitterly cold. Hearing the girl sneeze, Yan Che said, "Get up here."

"Huh?"

He pulled back the covers, his voice cool and detached. "I won't touch you. We'll sleep together."

They huddled close and made it through that cold winter.

At the coldest moments, Yan Che's burning-hot chest was pressed against her cheek.

At school, the campus heartthrob Yan Che was still the same Yan Che: first in his grade, winning award after award, poised and composed on the podium, his expression cool and distant. Even without the aura of a wealthy family around him, he was still the focus of every girl's gaze.

No one would ever connect him with the utterly ordinary Wen Dingling. She had never dared entertain the slightest improper thought, keeping her heart, burning for him, safely hidden.

That is, until graduation night, when Yan Che cornered her in the hallway outside the karaoke room.

A pink love letter was pinched between his fingers. He used it to lightly tap the girl's flushed cheek. "Helping your best friend deliver a love letter to me?"

Wen Dingling didn't dare look at him.

The boy lifted his chin slightly and leaned close to her reddened ear.

"Wen Dingling, tell me, should I say yes to her?"

Theme: A love that supports each other