The whole school knew that Shen Yu, the cold and aloof person who was number one in the grade, gave up his recommended spot for Lin Zhiwei on the day the results were released.
No one knew that that summer, he stood in the shadow of the plane tree below her house all night, just to tell her personally: "I can accompany you to any city."
But Lin Zhiwei didn't come.
Her mobile phone was smashed by a debt collector that night. She saw Shen Yu's back turning away through the gap in the curtains, thinking it was his silent disgust and farewell.
Later, she hid all her pride, changed her aspirations, and struggled to survive in a corner that he couldn't see.
Full of grievances, he waited for her in a prestigious school in a different place for three years, but what he waited for was a vague "no further contact" notice of withdrawal from her sent to the whole class.
At the graduation ceremony, Shen Yu finally handed her the school badge that had been hidden for four years, but his eyes were as cold as ice: "Lin Zhiwei, it turns out that your dream is so worthless."
She looked at the brand-name watch on his wrist that was given to him by others, took the school badge with a smile, and dug her fingernails into her palm: "Yes, so I won't delay you any longer."
What separates them is not the Pacific Ocean, but the "inability to control" that he will never understand, and the "poorness" that she will never be able to speak about.
In the midsummer of that year, the cicadas were still chirping noisily. Shen Yu went to a distant place as he wished, but Lin Zhiwei stayed where he was.
She didn't tell him that the notice to drop out of school was to collect the last surgery fee for her seriously ill mother; he didn't have time to ask, but the watch was actually an eighteenth birthday gift that she had saved up after working part-time for three months.
"Shen Yu, you are the light that I did not dare to touch when I was seventeen, and you are also the injury that I will never dare to mention again for the rest of my life."
Intention: "We both thought it was the other's salvation, but in the end we discovered that we couldn't even get out of our own quagmire."