The Morning Tide Attends the Banquet

The two summers at Mingde High School were the brightest, most vibrant symbol of youth in the entire city.

Two students who had stayed at the top of the grade rankings year after year upheld a legend no one else in the school could surpass. Teachers and students alike hailed them as the irreplaceable stars of the sciences and humanities.

Everyone knew:

The pinnacle of the sciences was Li Shuyan.

He was Mingde High School's most brilliant and gifted science prodigy. His logic was meticulous, his mind unmatched, and his scores in math and science left everyone else far behind. He held the number-one spot in his grade year after year. Gentle and refined in appearance, cool and distant in demeanor, he was always courteous and restrained, with a measured warmth. To his teachers, he was the perfect student who never caused trouble. To his peers, he was an unreachable ideal. He stood at the top of the crowd, radiating dazzling light, a boy everyone assumed had been born to shine.

The top of the humanities rankings was Luo Qi.

A gifted student with a wealth of talent and a brilliant pen, Luo Qi was passionate and forthright, radiant and confident, with a lively, free-spirited nature. He had grown up in fortunate circumstances, cherished tenderly by his family and treated kindly by life. Self-assured and bright, he wore his brilliance openly and lived the way every young person dreamed of living.

One excelled in the sciences, the other in the humanities. Together, they stood atop Mingde High School, a twin-star legend everyone talked about, one that could never be repeated.

But all that dazzling glory was only a facade. No one knew that the life of Li Shuyan, the god of science, was an airtight cage, cold all year round.

Everyone envied Li Shuyan's talent, composure, excellence, and perfection, but no one saw that his perfection was the result of more than a decade of high-pressure conditioning.

He came from an extremely strict, ruthlessly pragmatic, controlling family. His domineering parents planned every step of his life for him. His grades had to be top-notch, his words and actions impeccable, his temperament steady, and his future had to follow the path laid out by the family.

He had no right to choose, no right to his own preferences, and no right to his emotions.

He was not allowed to rebel, to be weak, or to slack off. He was not even allowed to have preferences or selfish desires of his own.

His gentleness was a cultivated manner, his cool distance a suit of armor for self-protection, and his restraint a habit carved into his bones.

From childhood onward, his life had never been about being himself. It was about fulfilling his family's expectations.

He was like a precise, cold machine that never stopped running, living day after day beneath a halo others envied, while inside he had long been broken and reduced to ashes.

He was used to swallowing all his pain alone, to falling apart in solitude late at night, to hiding every weakness in corners no one could see. For more than a decade, he had lived with dignity, followed every rule, and excelled at everything. The one thing he had never done was live as himself.

Everyone looked up to him, praised him, and relied on him, assuming he was invulnerable, assuming he needed neither warmth nor saving.

Until, one day, an unexpected first-place finish brought Luo Xi crashing into his bleak, barren world.

Luo Xi was the twin sister born of the same mother as Luo Qi, the humanities star.

Twins from the same womb, sharing the same blood, yet fate had given them utterly different lives.

Her brother Luo Qi lived in the sunlight, free and radiant, adored by the whole world;

Luo Xi, meanwhile, was quiet and reserved, sensitive and perceptive, living year after year in her brother's dazzling shadow.

The comparisons never stopped, from childhood onward.

Everyone always remembered the brilliant humanities prodigy Luo Qi, while no one cared about his ordinary, quiet twin sister, Luo Xi.

She was used to holding back, yielding, feeling inferior, and hiding all her emotions deep inside. She had seen life's warmth and coldness, understood the loneliness people hid from others, and knew what it was to feel insignificant and timid. That was why she possessed a pure, tender empathy and gentleness that others lacked.

Others saw Li Shuyan as the untouchable top student, a dazzling star beyond their reach.

Only Luo Xi looked past his halo and saw his shattered soul.

Their first meeting was ordinary, and their encounters unremarkable.

But the everyday routine of sharing their youth at Mingde High School slowly brought two people from opposite ends of the world closer together.

Everyone at school thought ordinary, unremarkable Luo Xi was chasing after someone else's light.

No one knew that from beginning to end, it was the gentleness in the dust that saved the star in the abyss.

She did not know how to make grand declarations of love or pursue someone with flashy passion. She simply drew closer to his frozen heart with the most delicate, enduring, and steadfast companionship.

When everyone demanded that he excel, be perfect, and maintain appearances,

only Luo Xi would tell him: You can be tired. You can be sad. You don't have to be strong all the time.

She saw the exhaustion behind his silent nights, understood the pain beneath his gentle mask, and sensed the loneliness beneath his restraint.

She stayed quietly by his side, catching all the negative emotions he had nowhere to put and accepting the obsession and darkness he kept hidden from everyone else.

Luo Qi's youth was bright and passionate, full of friends, with an open road ahead;

Lin Jin and Jiang Yu were brothers who were bold and carefree, joking and laughing, without a worry in the world;

Her deskmate Wen Zhiyu was gentle and perceptive, steady of heart and at ease year after year.

Only Li Shuyan was alone year after year, trapped in the shackles of his family, cold through every season.

Luo Xi's arrival planted the first ray of light in the barren years where nothing had grown for him.

She was gentle, resilient, sincere, and perceptive.

She showed Li Shuyan, who had spent his life confined by rules and shackles, that life did not have to mean staying tense every moment. A young person could have selfish desires. Being cherished, remembered, and sincerely cared for could feel this warm.

Through long years of companionship and healing, Luo Xi slowly melted the ice around him, soothed his old wounds one by one, and taught him what it meant to be moved, to be gentle, and to be loved.

And in this youth spent supporting one another, Luo Xi slowly came to understand what love truly meant.

She had once been insecure, timid, sensitive, and self-effacing.

She thought love meant looking up to someone, being unworthy of them, carefully trying to please them, and longing for something that would never come.

She lived in a state of self-doubt and never believed she deserved to be cherished or firmly chosen.

But Li Shuyan's special affection and the way he treated her as an exception gradually healed her insecurity and undid her fear.

She slowly understood that true love was never one-sided admiration and dependence.

It was not one person dazzling while the other remained insignificant, nor was it a matter of social standing or matching status.

True love meant saving one another, moving toward each other, understanding each other's brokenness and protecting each other's tenderness.

It meant a faint light daring to embrace a star, the ordinary daring to heal the barren, and two imperfect people piecing together a whole and tender love.

And in the end, this salvation completely rewrote Li Shuyan's life.

He had once been obedient, restrained, accommodating, and yielding, willing to be a puppet controlled by his family and to become the person others expected him to be.

He suppressed his true self, shut himself away, and did not dare to resist or fight for anything. He followed the rules all his life and had never once lived for himself.

But Luo Xi was the one and only exception, the sole fixation in his long, dark life.

To hold on to this one source of tenderness, to protect the faint light that had saved him, and to break free of more than a decade of suffocating restraints,

Li Shuyan rebelled against the family that had controlled his entire life for the first time.

He fought against his parents' domineering plans, refused the future they had set for him, and broke free of society's expectations and constraints.

He would no longer be the perfect, obedient creation his family wanted. He would no longer live by other people's standards or suppress his true self behind a false show of gentleness.

This long-delayed rebellion was a complete break with the life he had lived before.

It was the eruption of a lifetime of restraint, the first time he had bravely lived for himself, and the first time he had resolutely protected his own love and the person he cherished.

He took off the mask he had worn for years, shed his restrained coolness, and revealed the vitality and stubbornness that should belong to a boy his age.

The science prodigy who had been conditioned by his family for more than a decade and molded into a perfect ideal finally became the real Li Shuyan, fully alive in the love he was given.

He was no longer a cold, rule-bound genius, but simply an ordinary boy who loved Luo Xi passionately.

This grand story of youth was never only about the love, hatred, and salvation of two people.

A vivid, passionate ensemble cast brought the whole Mingde era to life.

Luo Qi, the dazzling star of the humanities, was Luo Xi's twin brother. At first, he did not understand his sister's sensitivity and insecurity, nor could he see Li Shuyan's brokenness and restraint. But he grew and witnessed it all along the way. From a naive, impulsive boy, he gradually learned to understand family ties, to protect and accept others, and to recognize the deep love between the two as they saved each other. In the end, he became their most openhearted supporter and protector.

Lin Jin and Jiang Yu were the most passionate, lively pair of brothers in their youth. One was bold and fiery, the other steady and gentle. They burst into everyone's youth, easing its oppressive moments with teasing and everyday warmth. They accompanied their friends through the long high school years of endless exam questions, sharing the joys of youth and weathering its confusion together. Their bond was irreplaceable.

Wen Zhiyu was the gentlest source of strength throughout Luo Xi's youth.

As the deskmate who spent every day by her side, she was the first to see Luo Xi's loneliness and insecurity. She stayed with her gently and protected her in silence year after year. She accompanied Luo Xi through her darkest, most timid days, witnessing her transform from someone self-effacing and withdrawn into someone brave and forthright. She saw her save a star with her faint light and witnessed every moment of the two healing each other and breaking free to begin again.

A group of young people met in the summer at Mingde and became entangled in the tides of youth.

Here you will find:

The most profound mutual salvation: She guides him out of the abyss of his family, and he gives her courage and confidence.

The most moving growth on both sides: He breaks free and stands up for himself for her, while she sheds her timidity and learns what love means because of him.

The most heartfelt ensemble cast: The bonds between siblings, friendships between boys, confidantes among girls, and youthful romances all intertwine.

Youth is never smooth sailing, and the road to salvation is always full of thorns.

They were separated by society's judgment, differences in status, old family wounds, and the awkwardness of youth. They wavered again and again amid countless tests, struggles, hesitations, and misunderstandings.

She once withdrew in insecurity, unable to believe she could save a star;

He once held himself back, afraid to break free of his shackles and reach for his only light.

Darkness trapped him for half his life, and timidity held her back for years.

Only after they met did they learn that life was worth living.

Everyone says that stars guide all living things.

Only they know the truth: a faint light fell into the abyss, an ordinary girl saved a god, and her gentleness made his new life possible.

The tides came and went, and every year they returned to the feast.

The encounter that began in a summer at Mingde was salvation, healing, breaking free, and rebirth.

After a lifetime of cold, Li Shuyan finally found the evening breeze that was Luo Xi.

The barren star was finally welcomed tenderly by the moonlight of the human world, cherished passionately, and granted a complete life together.

Theme: Our thoughts can shape so much, but I hope we can be true to ourselves, stop worrying about how others see us, and live our own lives.