This is the first time the author has written such a long story. You can read it as you please, and I will write as I please. I want to write a group portrait of youth, but most likely I won't be able to write it well. My biggest wish is that everyone likes the heroine from the bottom of their hearts!
The heroine who is sensitive and restrained but tough and upwardly mobile and the hero who is gentle and sunny but confused.
Zhu Mingzhi & Shen Yinghuai
Both the article and the introduction focus on the female protagonist's perspective:
A big city, a middle-class family, and an only child. These labels attached to Zhu Mingzhi seem to mean a smooth, ordinary and happy life. But it's a pity that Zhu Mingzhi is not. In her heart, she is an apple that is placed and put away in the fruit plate but no one cares about it. She is a small adjustment in the row below the first choice. She is the plan B in her parents' life plan. She is an alternative that is possible but leaves room for room.
And it took her her short but nearly entire life to understand all of this, and she was finally able to accept that there were people who were born to mean everything she wanted, and there were many people, such as Shen Yinghuai.
However, she doesn't want to be that ornamental puppy waiting to be chosen forever. She relies on herself, her grades, and every minute she spends to get the right to throw a coin into the wishing well. She wants to be the one in a million in everyone's eyes.
Still the enviable Shen Yinghuai, he said:
"You have something about you that I don't have, and it's beautiful."
In his words, Zhu Mingzhi got to know himself again. It turns out that she can also be her own salvation.
Maybe the essence of all stories is infinitely converging, but I believe this is also another kind of "existence precedes essence". Their stories keep repeating themselves at different nodes, but only this period of youth is a "cliché" that belongs exclusively to Zhu Mingzhi.
Intention: Be your own salvation.
