Shen Zhi and Lu Yu grew up across the street from each other. Once, he pulled off a brass button and pressed it into her hand. "When I make money, I'll trade you for a real one."
Later, an international exchange program took them to different places. She saw him off at the airport, smiling as she promised to wait for him to come back. They video-called for the first six months, but then his messages grew fewer and farther between. She stopped checking her phone for them.
When they met again at university, she was the beauty of the journalism department, while he was the law department's notorious "venomous snake" debater. She thought she could find the boy he used to be, but discovered that he already had a fiancée by his side, another exchange student.
During her internship, she was assigned to interview him. When she asked a question that wasn't on her list, he replied, "We were young back then. We didn't know any better." She returned the brass button she'd worn for six years, then turned and walked away.
Feeling guilty, he pursued her relentlessly, trying to make things right, but she kept retreating. Then one day, he saw her smiling without a care in the world at another guy, a smile she had only ever shown one person.
At last, he gave up and married the person he was supposed to marry. She, too, married the boy who would kneel down to tie her shoes.
Years later, at a class reunion, they raised their glasses across a round table. Afterward, their cars drove in opposite directions. Neither looked back in the rearview mirror.
Their childhood love never had the chance to ripen, and they each made a life of their own. In the end, time wore regret down to a simple, "Let it go."
Theme: Face the regrets of youth with reason, learn to let go with grace, find peace and grow along your own path, and cherish the person by your side.
Let the torture be more intense!!! 😭