When Cheng Nuo appeared before Chen Yan with a ring and proposed, Chen Yan finally believed in Murphy’s Law: the odds of being proposed to after a breakup were higher than the odds of Cheng Nuo, the woman she once loved, suddenly going crazy.
“I love you.”
“I regret deciding to leave the country twelve years ago. Even standing here in front of you now, I still regret it. Yan Yan, I should have stayed and been by your side all along. Then, when you finally wanted to date someone, I could have stepped forward without hesitation and said, ‘Yan Yan, go out with me,’ or ‘Yan Yan, what do you think of me as a girlfriend?’ Or maybe I wouldn’t have said anything at all and would have just kissed you softly. Any way you look at it, I would have become your girlfriend, the only person by your side for every day of the long life ahead. But I ruined everything. Yan Yan, I was the one who pushed you toward Cheng Xia.”
“During the eight years you were with Cheng Xia, you posted about the two of you on your social media every year. Sometimes you went somewhere fun, sometimes you tried some delicious food, sometimes you watched a movie, and sometimes you just wandered aimlessly through the streets... There was so much more. Through my cousin, I knew every last detail.”
“...”
“You don’t have to accept my proposal or my confession, but I hope you’ll give me a chance to pursue you again.”
Cheng Nuo’s confession was like a scalpel cutting open a time capsule. Only then did Chen Yan realize that the girl who had left without a word all those years ago had already started the countdown.
Reborn for no apparent reason in the year after her college entrance exams, Chen Yan discovers that fate left out a crucial detail. Cheng Nuo, who should have gone overseas, never left and instead became her college seatmate. A year later, her first love, who had promised they would part on good terms and never meet again, became her junior at school. And that’s not all: before that, Chen Yan had gone to see her first love. Worst of all, her childhood friend brought out that ring twelve years early.
“This time, I’ll still be the one to confess first.” Cheng Nuo holds the ring out to Chen Yan, a dark tide swirling in her eyes, something Chen Yan has never seen before. “When we were little, you were always the one who stepped in to protect me. Can I be the one to do that now? Yan Yan, you once said you’d take me to see the Northern Lights. I’ve been waiting all this time.”
“Can you make good on your promise now?”
(Final chapter from Cheng Nuo’s perspective)
Under the Northern Lights, Chen Yan opens the ring box and drops to one knee. Cheng Nuo suddenly remembers when they were twelve, crouching beneath a parasol tree to bury a dead cicada. Little Chen Yan had said, “I wish we could start over.”
Back then, Cheng Nuo had secretly buried a glass bottle in the dirt with a note inside: “I want to marry my childhood friend.”
Now, at last, she can plant that promise on the other woman’s ring finger.
Theme: Love yourself first, then love someone else
