Lu Xiaoyu

After starting high school, Lu Xiaoyu ran into her childhood friend Yuan Yang again and experienced the unfairness of the world.

When they were little, he'd just been a tagalong she had to protect. Now he was tall and handsome, ranked first in their grade, and made winning competition gold medals and basketball championships look easy.

When Yuan Yang spoke as the student representative at the flag-raising platform, the sunlight illuminated his white shirt. He seemed radiant and out of reach.

By comparison, she was perfectly ordinary. She wasn't tall, and her grades were average.

She was so unremarkable that Yuan Yang had already forgotten her. He didn't even recognize her when they passed each other.

/

Lu Xiaoyu thought they would never cross paths again, until one evening during a break in evening self-study, a friend dragged her to watch Yuan Yang play basketball. She hadn't eaten dinner and her blood sugar dropped, leaving her crouched beside the field, pale and unable to stand.

That evening, everyone at evening self-study heard the usually nonchalant young master, the carefree top student Yuan Yang, solemnly read an apology over the school broadcast: "I was wrong. I shouldn't have skipped evening self-study to go buy milk tea."

He paused, then asked, "Lu Xiaoyu, are you feeling better?"

Now the whole school knew there was something between them, but Lu Xiaoyu wouldn't admit it. She insisted Yuan Yang had just been helping someone in need.

When the rumor reached Yuan Yang, he lazily intercepted Lu Xiaoyu. "Didn't you say I was just helping someone in need? Then treat me to a meal to thank the Good Samaritan."

With other people around, Lu Xiaoyu had no choice but to reluctantly agree.

Yuan Yang was very pleased. "Great, let's go, Lu."

After school that evening, Lu Xiaoyu ran into Yuan Yang again at the bus stop. He got on first and pointed at the card reader with an infuriatingly smug look. "Pay your fare."

Lu Xiaoyu got mad. "Are you ever going to stop?"

Yuan Yang, on the other hand, was completely unapologetic. "I was your tagalong for so long when we were little, and then you started avoiding me as soon as we got to high school. What's wrong with asking for a little compensation?"

/

Lu Xiaoyu had never told anyone that she skipped dinner that day because she'd spent half an hour asking the math teacher about problems she'd gotten wrong.

She wanted to improve her grades. She wanted Yuan Yang to notice her.

After the college entrance exams, she returned to school and discussed her university applications with her friends. Everyone envied how well she'd done, but only she knew how many late nights she'd spent, slowly grinding her way through the lines of exercises in her workbooks.

Suddenly, a long arm snatched away the draft covered in university names. Yuan Yang's voice came from above her head. "Mind if I borrow this to copy?"

Lu Xiaoyu's heart raced, but she stubbornly retorted, "What for? Don't tell me you're going to make me compensate you all the way through university."

Yuan Yang called her by name, blunt and direct. "Lu Xiaoyu, I like you. Are you pretending you can't tell?"

First love for both of them

The title and the heroine's name were inspired by Jay Chou's movie Secret.

Blurb screenshot date: 2023.9.23

Theme: The meaning of growth is becoming a better person.