The Gold Medal Is Yours, You Are Mine

The print edition has been renamed Meteor and will go on pre-sale across all platforms at 7:30 p.m. on May 13. If you're interested, keep an eye out for it~

The story is complete~ I'm slowly revising it. If you've read the whole thing, please leave me a rating, cuties. Mwah~

[Reading Guide (and Content Warnings)]

[Everything in brackets is true. No false advertising.]

[Before the characters are adults, they are only rivals and teammates. The romance begins once both are adults, and they only confess their feelings in the final chapter.]

[There are some everyday scenes about competing, but this is really just a coming-of-age angst story with no educational content whatsoever.]

[The story is entirely fictional, with mountains of author-invented details. The author can't play badminton and has no related professional experience. If that bothers you, proceed with caution.]

[The writing is at an elementary-school level, and the story goes way off-script. All logic serves the plot. If that bothers you, proceed with caution.]

[No real-life inspirations. Please don't compare the characters to real people.]

[If you come across something you dislike, please stop reading in time. Thank you, and perhaps we'll meet again another time.]

Please read the blurb below only if you're okay with all of the above

At eighteen, Xie Shi'an won the national championship, earning a direct place in the World Championships. The young woman was brimming with confidence, with a limitless future ahead of her.

On New Year's Eve that year, she and her friends made wishes together as they gazed at the surging river.

“I want to make it to the World Championships!”

“I want to get into my dream university!”

“Then I want to win the national swimming league!”

“I want a Grand Slam!”

“Then I'll pray that all my friends' wishes come true!”

In the years that followed, Xie Shi'an repaid kindness with betrayal and lost friends and mentors to life and death. Plagued by injuries, she never won a Grand Slam before retiring. At least she still had a little bean sprout by her side.

Jian Changnian came to badminton late and was recruited to the provincial team by Coach Yan. When she first arrived, people nicknamed her “Bean Sprout.”

She was frail and insecure, yet her heart belonged to someone she could never have.

After Xie Shi'an retired, Jian Changnian became the first woman in the country to win a badminton Grand Slam.

Five years after she won the Grand Slam,

Meteor, the country's first documentary about athletes, premiered and went on to win Best Documentary at the Berlin Film Festival.

At the end of the film, a line of small text appeared:

“Dedicated to all the souls who struggle to rise.”

Badminton · Two female leads · Mutual devotion · Happy ending

Prodigy x hard worker, three-year age gap.

“The wind changes the flight of a shuttlecock, but you are where mine will land.”

P.S. “I have repaid all kindness with betrayal; friends and mentors lost to life and death” is from “Jin Lü Qu (Two Poems)” by Gu Zhenguan, Qing dynasty.

Theme: Dedicated to all the souls who struggle to rise.