No Wind in the Valley

The August sun blazed like fire that year when I met you.

In the final year of high school, Shi Yan went to an arts-exam prep school to study academic subjects.

In the dorm, Shi Yan sat on the top bunk, fanning herself with her hand. Someone opened the closed dorm door. The girl who walked in met her eyes and said, "Hi."

"Hello," Shi Yan replied, a little stiffly...

The two gradually grew close. After a shower one day, Shi Yan asked, "What body wash do you use? It smells sweet."

Only later did Shi Yan realize that it wasn't the scent of body wash at all. It was a distinctive scent that only she could smell.

*

Shi Yan kept stepping closer, while Zhou Qiyao kept retreating until there was nowhere left to hide.

Your closeness made me realize that I, too, could be loved.

"Twenty million. Will you marry me?"

"I will!"

"How long will you stay with me?"

Shi Yan tapped her pen against the notebook.

"It'll be twelve hours tonight. I'll stay with you the whole time. I'll be the one by your side when you're sick, and the one who dies after you."

Before Zhou Qiyao could ask what she meant by that last part, Shi Yan said, "I hope you won't be alone in the end."

*

Your appearance in my life was the greatest twist of fate.

It's a melodramatic, cliched story about one person saving another.

There's an obnoxious, sleazy nobody of an actor in the middle. Try to spare your precious eyes when you get to those parts.

The whole story is clean, with no explicit love scenes.

Theme: If we'd had the courage back then, we wouldn't have missed each other.