Let the Wind Keep Blowing

[100,000 words in the buffer, updates follow the rankings before VIP status, daily updates afterward]

[Estimated total length: 150,000 words]

Two top students / He secretly loves her

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A new student joined the liberal arts honors class at Yunchuan No. 1 High School.

From the day she walked into the classroom, six words were written all over her unapproachable face: Don't interfere with my studies.

She was quiet and reserved, always like a tightly wound machine, tirelessly working through consumables known as exam papers and exercise books.

A month later, the only thing her classmates knew about her was that her name was Yin Ruoyu, and that she was a repeat student who had dropped out of the School of Economics and Management at a famous 985 university in the capital.

At the first monthly exam of the school year, Yin Ruoyu made a name for herself, scoring thirty points higher than Zhou Qiyan, the perennial top student, and firmly claiming first place among the liberal arts students.

Watching his desk mate, who sat rooted in her seat like a perpetual-motion machine, earbuds in and head bent over practice questions, Zhou Qiyan felt a profound sense of defeat for the first time.

He struck up a conversation with her. "Hey, big shot, did you come back to repeat a year just to become the provincial top scorer?"

She looked up at him expressionlessly, as if to say, "What's it to you?"

-

Some people maliciously gossiped behind her back, saying Yin Ruoyu was a bookworm who did nothing but bury her head in her studies.

In fact, Yin Ruoyu had been blessed by the protagonist's halo her whole life. The first eighteen years had gone smoothly, but then she suffered a crushing defeat in the college entrance exam.

All the medals, flowers, applause, and achievements that had come before seemed utterly worthless in the face of that decisive result.

And so, in the year she got to start over, all that remained in her life were the two words "test scores."

Later, Zhou Qiyan learned by chance that Yin Ruoyu had once been deeply in love with someone.

She had applied to a university in the same city as him, and the two of them had once shared a brief, passionate summer romance that had come to nothing.

Like every clichéd story, she had pursued him with all her might, while he remained above her, looking down on her efforts, before turning away without hesitation.

Zhou Qiyan asked, bitterness in his voice, "Just to compete with him, you put yourself through all this. Is it worth it?"

Yin Ruoyu replied calmly, "I wanted to do it, so I did. Whether it's worth it doesn't matter."

-

On her nineteenth birthday, the waterfront of Victoria Harbour was crowded with people, its lights dazzling.

Yin Ruoyu saw Zhou Qiyan making his way through the crowd toward her.

She asked, "You gave up such a good school and came all this way to find me. Was it worth it?"

Zhou Qiyan said, "What can I say? I just happen to like places by the sea."

[Reader's Guide]

1. The heroine has an ex-boyfriend during her university years.

2. The story is set under the old college entrance exam system, which divided students into liberal arts and science tracks.

Theme: There are countless roads to take.