Crossing into Summer

[Print edition signed with Dayu Culture, released in November 2024 ^^. NetEase Cloud has a Cantopop playlist called "Crossing Summer".]

[The summer breeze in Yuchun City is scorching yet gentle. Duan Xun and Xu Weiying fall passionately in love amid the lanes of Wuhe Street.]

-

One summer in her youth, Xu Weiying was drawn by a gentle voice singing softly. She stopped in front of a guesthouse.

The courtyard's wooden gate stood slightly ajar. A summer breeze blew through, carrying the gentle singing from inside.

When Xu Weiying softly pushed open the wooden gate, she saw for the first time a boy in the summer courtyard, reclining in a lounge chair with his eyes wearily closed.

He wore a black T-shirt and shorts. His skin was pale, and he lounged lazily in the chair.

The gentle, murmuring song finally came to an end.

The boy in the chair slowly opened his eyes. With a languid, casual gaze, he looked toward Xu Weiying by the gate through the afternoon sunshine.

After a few seconds, the boy curled his lip and spoke in a lazy, offhand voice.

Only...

Xu Weiying didn't understand him.

Only later did Xu Weiying learn

that on that afternoon, Duan Xun had said to her in Cantonese, "Little girl, who are you looking for?"

-

That midsummer of their youth, Xu Weiying had thought the boy she met by chance would only pass through her life briefly.

But one late night years later,

Duan Xun's kiss, warm breath trailing behind it, landed at the side of her neck. His low, hoarse voice, edged with a breathy murmur, sounded seductively in her ear. "Why is your face so red?"

Xu Weiying leaned drowsily against Duan Xun, held in his arms. For a fleeting moment, she was dazed, then suddenly understood.

So the farewell poem had been signed, "Endless Summer."

The boy she'd met all those years ago hadn't merely passed through.

He would be part of her long, long life.

* Set in a Guangdong city. The print edition has a happy ending; the online version has a bad ending that may be deleted at any time.

* Summer will never have a bad ending.

My ongoing bad-ending novel, Little Cloud Oxygen, is also available. Add it to your collection if you're interested!

One summer vacation, Yun Yang stepped into the alleys of Chunyi Street and met Zhou Keye for the first time.

The boy wore a white shirt and black pants. His wet black bangs were brushed back from his forehead, and he stood strong and nimble atop a wooden training post, holding a Guan Yu lion head in his left hand.

The summer breeze blew, swaying the lion's tassels. Behind him, the sky was ablaze with sunset clouds, painted in bold, inky colors.

The instant their eyes met was like a dazzling scene from a movie.

The boy and girl first met in the midsummer heat on Chunyi Street in Nanhai.

But summer doesn't last forever.

Later, she became the little cloud of oxygen Zhou Keye could never reach again for the rest of his life.

* A gentle, airy girl x a free-spirited lion-dance boy

* Set in Foshan. Lion dance culture details drawn from online sources and references. Bad ending.

Theme: Live well, and grow up well.