Orange Peels Bloom [Small Town]

[The title will be changed to The Orange Peel Will Bloom while the novel is ongoing.]

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[Childhood friends / Small-town story / Reunion after years apart / Ensemble cast]

The looks-obsessed big sister of the family compound (?) x the aloof, disobedient little sidekick (?)

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We were the last batch of children born in Changshui Town in the twentieth century, and we stumbled our way into the new millennium.

On a winter night in 2002, a magnificent spectacle appeared in the sky.

I only learned later that adults called those long-tailed stars a meteor shower.

He Langxing told me that.

He seemed interested in everything about astronomy, and loved dragging me to the red-brick wall to look at the stars.

"What constellation is that?" he asked me.

"He Langxing."

"That's the Big Dipper."

I gazed at the star-filled sky and stubbornly pretended I didn't know.

"Then what do you know?"

"I know He Langxing."

He showed me how small Changshui was, and how vast the world could be.

But to me, he was the brightest star of all.

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Only after growing up did Chen Xuyue realize that the little mountain at the foot of which even a map couldn't mark could hold every reunion after a long separation.

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Reading tips:

● The main characters were born in the 1990s.

● The story is told in third person. Most place names are fictional, with no real-world allusions.

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Blurb dated September 7, 2022

Theme: May you and your childhood friends never lose touch, and watch the sunrise together.