Fated Reunion

It seems like all the beautiful things in life happen in the height of summer, so in the summer of her senior year, Wang Shanyi met someone.

Under the sunlight, the red track gleamed. He stood there with his back straight, as if bathed in light.

At a glance, she felt nothing at all.

She had always been immune to unfamiliar guys.

What she didn't expect was that his figure would keep appearing in her mind over and over again.

.

On the morning after the college entrance exams, Wang Shanyi was called to a meeting in the Youth League office.

Standing upstairs, she watched through the glass as her classmates passed through the Gate of Success and hugged their teachers. She watched the red carpet being rolled up and the teachers of various subjects leave one by one.

Her heart sank like the setting sun.

Twenty minutes later, she lowered her head and went downstairs one step at a time, following the numbers on her phone.

The moment she rounded the corner,

the person she'd been longing for appeared before her.

He walked past, and He Li's eyes followed him without her even realizing it.

For the first time, she was grateful that the school hallway was so narrow.

It made it possible for him to catch her unabashed stare.

.

I think we must have been fated to meet, at least a little.

Maybe not by much. In total, we spent less than twenty-four hours together.

It was so strange.

I fell for someone who'd said fewer than ten words to me in total.

.

She wasn't the kind of person who held on to someone forever, either.

After leaving school following the college entrance exams that year, she never saw him again.

He became a seed buried deep in her heart, with no chance of growing in the dry soil.

During the summer break of her third year of college, she went back to Qingchuan to visit her grandmother.

Maybe she was a masochist. Somehow, she found herself wandering around her old high school.

The security guard recognized her and told her a teacher was on duty inside.

A teacher from the physical education department told her he'd left after his internship ended.

Wang Shanyi didn't even know what day he had left.

She only remembered that even though it was the height of summer, and the sunlight was blazing,

her heart felt as still as a windless sea, without the slightest ripple.

Before leaving the school, she turned back for one last look at the field where she'd first met him.

It was the end of another semester, and every class was holding its physical fitness tests.

Through the crowds, Wang Shanyi saw a girl standing at the takeoff line.

For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw his figure.

Then the illusion disappeared. She laughed at herself and turned away.

Between trembling lips, a quiet murmur escaped.

“He Ji, don't you remember me?”

.

Sometimes I still think of him.

What is he to me? Nothing at all. He's probably forgotten me by now.

I don't think we'll ever see each other again.

What should you call a brief encounter like that?

Your first crush.

.

One winter, a very long time later,

by the Holy Lake, beneath a sky full of stars like the ones she'd only ever seen in Van Gogh's paintings,

she suddenly heard a call from far away.

When she looked up, she saw the figure who had filled her eighteenth year.

He was still standing tall, and each step he took toward her was so sure.

Time had twisted and turned through more than two thousand days and nights.

Thankfully, Wang Shanyi finally heard the reply to her confession.

“If I could do it all over again, I'd still keep my distance from you.

But I know I'd fall for you all over again.”

If we met at the wrong time the first time, then let's meet again.

◎ The male lead is not a virgin; the female lead is.

◎ Six-year age gap

◎ A small portion takes place at school

◎ The female lead comes from a broken family

◎ The romance begins after they are adults

As a student, the female lead was well-behaved and kept a low profile because of her family circumstances, but she quietly did a lot.

The male lead had no ulterior motives at all. He was only at the school for his internship.

It was simply fate that brought them together again.

Thankfully, this time the timing was right.

Theme: Hard work is freedom