In the first-grade class rankings, Cui Jianing ranked first and Shi Jing ranked second.
She remembered him because the way he looked at her was so calm - as if the "number one" could be anyone, but his last name just happened to be Cui. He wouldn't obey her, and she wouldn't let him.
Later they became tablemates. She discovered that the second place would secretly put finger protectors in her drawer, would remember that she ate breakfast without green onions, and would put a cup of hot soy milk after she failed the monthly exam, with a note saying "I didn't see anything about you crying."
Cui Jianing is a person who grew up from the ruins. Her mother passed away and her father remarried. Her only place in that family was to be "the best." So every time Shi Jing approached her, it felt like someone was trying to take away the last brick from under her feet.
But later she realized that what Shi Jing handed over was never a knife, but a rope.
He wanted her to win - not just in the exam room, but in life. Because he felt that she needed the word "win" more than he did to live.
In three years, there were two cans of Coke on the rooftop, a notebook filled with "This is important", and a hug that was never broken. They are rivals in everyone's eyes, and only each other knows that there is a lot of "I'm with you" hidden in those tit-for-tat confrontations that they dare not say out loud.
On the day when the college entrance examination ended, the sunset dyed the rooftop orange. He said: "My second choice will be wherever you go in college."
She cried and laughed: "What if I don't get admitted to my first choice?"
He held her hand: "Then I will change my first choice. Anyway, in the past three years, my first choice has been -"
You are the only one I dare to trust. Beyond rankings, within life.
Purpose: After love and future, oneself always comes first.