Rule Number One for Giving Up Sugar

- Song Wantang has a friend who isn’t quite a friend. They’ve known each other for years. Song Wantang has been busy studying hard and striving to improve, while the other has been busy smoking, drinking, skipping class, fighting, and acting like a big shot. He’s sick, too. He beats people with a stick while reminding Song Wantang to follow traffic rules when crossing the road. In the middle of a blackout, he climbs a high wall at midnight and taps on the window just to ask if Song Wantang is afraid of the dark. When his illness really takes hold, he can’t control himself. Medication doesn’t help, yet he insists on eating a particular kind of candy. Song Wantang never played with him. Not until one day, when he died. Song Wantang often finds himself wishing he could come back. One day, that wish comes true. Song Wantang returns to a year earlier. In the early morning, as the first light breaks, the newly transferred Song Wantang stands beside an empty seat in the back row of the classroom. The boy slumped over the desk looks up at him, anger at being woken from a beautiful dream written all over his handsome face. Song Wantang holds out his hand. A candy in pink wrapping rests in his pale palm. “Can I sit here?” The anger vanishes. Even surprise slowly melts into repressed delight. Duan Ye says, “...Sure.” - The first time Duan Ye sees Song Wantang, he looks like a soft, white little dumpling: delicate, pretty, quiet, and cute. But no fun to play with. Still, with all the kids around, Duan Ye only wants to play with him. Because little Song Wantang is the only one who never looks at him strangely or insults him with cruel words. Little Duan Ye writes in his diary, haltingly, using pinyin: “Song Wantang is the prettiest kid in the world, the cutest kid in the world.” “The kid I like most.” - Theme: Life needs sweetness