Paper Butterfly

[Blurb]

Dongqing and Xia Bai were two entirely different people in their school days.

One was a flamboyant rich girl, so dazzling that no one could look away. The other was a quiet academic, aloof and hard to approach.

No one would have imagined the two of them ever having anything to do with each other.

But then, in a rainy alley when they were seventeen...

The boy held his umbrella low, but the wind still lifted the hem of his school uniform. Dongqing stepped through a puddle to stop him, chin raised haughtily. "Xia Bai, do you like me?"

She had only asked on a whim, but the question unexpectedly sent both their worlds off course. Raindrops clung to Xia Bai's eyelashes like frost on a butterfly. He rejected her without hesitation and turned to leave.

Later, he skipped grades and disappeared, only to meet her again at a competition. Dongqing caught him by the sleeve. A smile lifted the corners of her eyes, bright and passionate. He knew he shouldn't, but he did it anyway: he forgot the pain once more and fell for her again.

He was like a paper butterfly, recklessly flying toward the light. Even though he had known all along that the blazing flames would leave him nothing but ashes.

-

Dongqing didn't understand love, but she remembered New Year's Eve when she was eighteen. She remembered the bandage Xia Bai had brought her from the basketball team, and the Christmas candy that had appeared in her desk.

Xia Bai was like a mountain ridge in her heart that she could never cross. The angrier she got, the more she thought about him. The day they met again, she resolved to toy with Xia Bai's feelings and make him regret abandoning her without a word.

A woman who's played the field can still turn over a new leaf. Later, she realized that all those days and nights of resentment and indignation were really longing.

Theme: A mutual pursuit makes a story shine.