Ice and Fire

"If the whole world shut its doors to you, would you still believe someone might leave a light on for you?"

"I would."

What are girls like? Girls are clear and resilient as ice, fierce and bright as fire. She was her ice, and she was her fire.

Wan Shilan was born into a respectable family in a small southern city. Her father was a "good man" praised by everyone, but behind closed doors, he was someone else entirely. Her mother learned to keep silent after years of oppression, while Wan Shilan swallowed all her anger and grew into a fierce girl who seemed impossible to hurt. On the day she transferred to Beicheng No. 3 High School, she wore a black hoodie and headphones, rejecting anyone who tried to get close. She froze herself into an iceberg, because only ice could keep her from being burned again.

Mu Xi grew up in the shantytown district of Beicheng. Her father was bedridden, and her mother sold vegetables at the market. From the age of six, she learned to set up their stall with her mother at four in the morning, and to memorize vocabulary beneath the streetlights. When she got into Beicheng No. 3 High School, her mother had to borrow money from seven different people to scrape together her tuition. She was like a blazing flame, burning fiercely, yet always on the verge of being blown out by the wind.

The two girls met at the end of a hallway at Beicheng No. 3 High School: one was standing there as punishment for fighting, the other had been called in over unpaid tuition. Wan Shilan offered her headphones, blaring rock music. Mu Xi froze for a moment, then smiled and said, "That's too loud," but still put them in her ears.

At seventeen, Mu Xi gripped Wan Shilan's wrist, bruised by her father, and said, "I'll take you away." At eighteen, Wan Shilan placed all the money she'd saved over three years in front of her. "Let's go. We'll head north together."

Theme: Understanding, trust, and standing side by side