At sixteen, Qiu Zhiguang was a model student praised by everyone, while Pei Yan was a delinquent who smoked and got into fights. They passed each other every day on the muddy streets of the urban village, one unruly and defiant, the other looking down on everyone. Qiu Zhiguang thought their lives would never intersect.
Until one late night in a dark alley, when Pei Yan saved her from a demon and paid for it with half his life.
At eighteen, Qiu Zhiguang was the top student in Nanshi, surrounded by the spotlight, while Pei Yan was a prisoner barely clinging to life. They gazed at each other from opposite sides of a glass window. Pei Yan looked at the bright admission letter in her hands and smiled, just like the clear sunshine beyond the prison walls.
He told the girl, "Qiu Zhiguang, live well. Live long enough to leave the urban village and see the world I never got to see."
The girl said nothing.
Two months later, he died in prison. Qiu Zhiguang carried his ashes out of the prison, feeling that the brilliant sunshine that day was just like an endless nightmare.
At twenty-six, Qiu Zhiguang was a lonely spirit still wandering among the living, while Pei Yan lay in a solitary grave on a barren mountain outside the city. She brought the verdict that had come ten years too late to his gravestone, along with the justice that had come ten years too late.
"I'm sorry I never got to see the world you wanted to visit."
"If there's another life, Pei Yan..."
She spoke softly. "Don't save me again."
Please, don't ever save me again.
A few days later, a small new grave appeared on that barren mountain.
Qiu Zhiguang thought that was their final goodbye. She never imagined that when she opened her eyes, she would be back on that night when she was sixteen.
With tears in her eyes, she hid in a corner of the alley and watched the teenage Pei Yan slam the demon against the wall, punching him again and again. The sound of bones breaking rang out like a death knell.
What appeared before her then was the small wooden box from eight years ago, and the blinding sunlight outside the prison.
The boy's palm was stained with blood. He slowly came to stand before her and gently wiped the tears from her cheek with all the care he could muster.
"Don't be afraid," he rasped.
The wail of police sirens drew near. Qiu Zhiguang watched him struggle to raise the corners of his mouth, and only one thought filled her mind:
Saving him would mean saving herself, too.
"She came here across the vastness of time for one reason: to pull from the muddy mire the one piece of driftwood she had clung to when she was drowning."
"He took her hand, and from then on, he held the sun in his hands."
Theme: Never give up hope, no matter what.
