Scorching Summer

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In her second year of high school, a golden boy transferred from the capital. With the face of a carefree playboy, he had countless girls flocking to him.

By contrast, You Xiahe, a quiet and unassuming girl at the same school, was like a parallel line that would never cross his. She knew how different they were, so she kept her crush on him a secret no one would ever discover.

At a party in a private karaoke room, colorful lights danced across the walls, reflecting off his devil-may-care face. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal the cool, pale bones of his wrists as he idly toyed with a lighter.

After losing a game of dares, a girl blushed and confessed her feelings to him amid the crowd's deafening cheers.

Zhou Ninghe paused for a moment, then raised the corner of his eye and smiled, tapping ash from his cigarette with a bent finger. "Sure."

Later, shortly before graduation, You Xiahe gathered her courage and tucked some endless-summer petals into an autograph book, asking a friend to deliver it to him.

The boy looked languid. After receiving the book, he merely raised his eyes and glanced at it carelessly, flicked the petals away, then pulled out another autograph book and wrote a few lines before handing it back to her.

*

They met again at the dessert shop she had just opened.

Zhou Ninghe had just held an art exhibition and flown back from out of town. Looking at the girl before him, who seemed somehow familiar, he casually remarked while paying, "You look familiar."

That simple sentence made You Xiahe's long-dead heart beat again. She felt the same flutter of young love she had experienced back in school.

She kept her composure and looked away from him. "Do I? I guess I just have an ordinary face."

Later, when her girlish feelings from years ago were exposed in front of him, Zhou Ninghe gripped her arm, the corner of his eye lifting as he teased, "You like me?"

The next second, he pulled her into his arms. He lowered his head slightly, his Adam's apple bobbing as their breaths mingled. He leaned over her shoulder, his voice husky. "What a coincidence. I like you too."

At that moment, she knew she could finally stop referring to him by a code name.

*

He didn't know that what he thought were their first two encounters had both been reunions for You Xiahe.

*Both are inexperienced in love.

*The male lead has a romantic history early on.

*An early-school-days secret crush, followed by a city romance where the man pursues the woman.

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