The Allergen Is Unreliable

Childhood friends / Small-town life / Secret crush on her / Mutual healing

Xu Duoqian is allergic to unreliable people. Her condition stems from the unreliable figures who haunted her childhood.

* Xu Duoqian's mom once locked three-year-old Xu Duoqian inside the house so she could play mahjong without a care in the world. She got so caught up in the game that she completely forgot about the hungry little girl, and only noticed her when she got home that night, to find her gnawing on a table leg.

* Xu Duoqian's dad once dozed off at a painfully boring parent-teacher meeting, snoring so loudly he drowned out the homeroom teacher. The teacher was furious, and afterward Xu Duoqian was called to the office for a talk.

* Xu Duoqian's life was one long ordeal.

Fortunately, she had Gu Zhou, her brilliant and impossibly dependable childhood friend. He was a model student with impeccable values, reliable in everything he did and fiercely principled. Any problem was a mere trifle to him.

He was the very "anchor" of Xu Duoqian's life.

Xu Duoqian idolized Gu Zhou. She wouldn't listen to a word anyone else said, but anything Gu Zhou told her went straight onto the wall. For example, her room had a list of the three forbidden study habits Gu Zhou had warned her about:

Copying homework: No

Cheating: No

Dating in school: No

One day, rumors spread that the principled, almost otherworldly Gu, the top student, had been called to the office over a suspected school romance.

As if! The top student's sights were set on the stars and the sea. How could he be distracted by romance?

Xu Duoqian thought the rumor was absolutely ridiculous.

In the office, faced with a whole notebook full of a young man's secret feelings, the upright, handsome boy, as straight as a birch tree, remained calm and candid:

"Teacher, the way I see it, dating in school takes two people. One-sided feelings are called a secret crush, like mine."

A self-assured, rebellious little ray of sunshine who never overthinks things x a dependable, cool boy with a heart full of secret romantic thoughts beneath his reserved exterior

++++, Original blurb saved on 2019.1.17 + Supplement added on 2020.4.17

Theme: Life has no set formula