Midsummer, Ten Years Later

In late summer of 2012, Qiao Yang found an injured stray cat.

She was about to spend a year repeating her studies at a boarding school. After treating the cat's wounds, she entrusted it to a close friend.

Much later, she learned from that friend that the little cat had crossed the ocean with its new owner and was now living a life of luxury.

The person who adopted it was named Chen Zhuo.

It was the name of the boy who had appeared countless times in her diary and on her scrap paper.

But they had no past together, and no future, either.

*

Ten years later, on a midsummer day of thunder and rain, Qiao Yang rescued another cat from the road and called the phone number on its collar.

A lovely female voice answered and explained that she and her boyfriend had taken the cat to have wedding photos taken that day, but a sudden downpour had frightened it into running off. "My boyfriend will be right over to pick it up."

Qiao Yang soon met her boyfriend.

The man was tall and slender, with handsome features. His tone was polite but distant. "Hello, I'm Chen Zhuo."

-Be, unrequited love, short story

Theme: Don't dwell on the past.