[You are the love I can never win back]
He was an untamed wind, yet he was willing to linger for the moonlight over Sydney Harbour.
She was a bird trapped on piano keys, a soul escaping through electronic music.
"More than seven hundred bouquets of jasmine, and 3,323 paper stars in a tin box, all bearing the same wish. I studied desperately and scored 523 points."
"It was the closest thing he could think of to a way of getting closer to her."
A carefree poor boy fell in love with a princess who lived in Sydney.
He was a wild dog in the alley, fighting tooth and nail for money. She was a dazzling guitarist onstage.
He fell in love with someone he should never have loved.
"Niannian, I want to see you. Right now."
March 12. Clear skies.
Yet a ceaseless downpour began in her world.
At 3:12 p.m., flight SG312, bound for Australia, crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
Lu Burang died in the waters on the way to Sydney, and his longing sank to the bottom of the sea.
That day was her birthday.
March 12.
An ordinary spring day on the calendar
became the longest winter of her life.
"I want to see my princess."
After meeting her, he made a wish: to become a pilot, and soar through the skies above her country.
Become a pilot, cross the equator, pass through the monsoon, and land in her city.
He wanted to descend from the sky and come down beside her.
He was wild grass growing out of a quagmire, with the musical staff of the Sydney Opera House etched into his bones. He wanted to get closer, to catch another glimpse of her onstage.
He folded his rebellious soul into a paper airplane and sent it through the equatorial currents and the monsoon.
"Niannian, do you like me a little more today?" Every week, he brought her a bouquet of jasmine, paid for with the beatings he took.
Because she liked it, he wanted nothing more than to get it for her.
His bloodied knuckles hid fresh wounds, while the jasmine in his arms remained pure white.
He lived like a playboy and loved like a believer.
The boy was always covered in injuries, but the girl he loved was a princess.
Defiant and uninhibited, he was a playboy who flirted with every flower, yet unbearably sincere at heart. At last, the proud wild dog had found the princess he wanted to protect.
[Excerpt from her notes]
Later, he asked me again what flowers I liked.
I said jasmine. Every Friday, a bouquet appeared on my desk, and he came home with another wound.
I asked him where the flowers came from and what had happened to him.
He said he had bumped into something, but I didn't believe him. He only said that jasmine was beautiful and suited me.
But I knew the neon sign at that underground boxing ring.
When it lit up, its glow fell across his bloodied brow.
- Jasmine flowers and a little musician are a perfect match.
But Lu Burang was afraid he wasn't good enough for someone as perfect as her. He fought to keep going every day, just to become worthy of his princess.
He traded his life for money.
The boy tucked jasmine into the girl's chestnut curls. Blood from a recent alley fight still stained his knuckles. "A princess deserves flowers that are always fresh."
- He said the thorns on the stem were the red thread of fate tied by the Matchmaker.
- But he hid the truth of the fights in the alley at the end of the lane.
"Will you be my girlfriend, Niannian?" Lu Burang was drunk, and her figure filled his world.
Before he left, he sent her one last text:
- My little musician, would you give me a private concert?
The plane went down, taking with it the person who had fought desperately to cross the ocean just to see her.
Reborn on the day they first met, she grabbed the bloodstained hem of his shirt:
"This time, let me protect you, okay?"
But on the night she learned that he had been in a plane crash, she somehow returned to the year they first met. This time, she didn't want to let go of his hand again.
But fate revealed a cruel smile:
At the end of salvation lay only a golden dream born of too much longing.
"Just when I thought I'd turned everything around and made up for it all, I discovered it had all been for nothing. You still left me for good that day."
[Reader's Guide]
* First loves for both leads / rebirth and tragic ending / medium-to-long novel
* A stubborn, mixed-race heroine with contrasting sides x a wild, loyal hero who grows over time
* No real-life inspirations!
Theme: I believe love lasts forever, and love never changes
