Secret Crush Turns to Love | Healing and Growth | Reunion After Years Apart | SC
By-the-book x Rebellious
Illustrator x Pilot
Every secret on every page of Zhu Jin's high school sketchbook had something to do with Xie Yichen.
He was born into a wealthy family, bold and unruly, a golden boy adored by all.
Unlike sensitive, reserved, quiet, and well-behaved Zhu Jin, he longed for faraway places and would never let anyone hold him back.
At their high school graduation, Zhu Jin sat in a classroom corner, watching students and teachers offer Xie Yichen their congratulations for getting into the Civil Aviation University of China.
She opened the sketchbook she had never given him and looked out at the contrails beyond the window, finishing the last page:
“More than wishing you a bright future and success in flight school,”
“I want to wish you the freedom of the wind, and safe takeoffs and landings.”
“It doesn't matter if you never see this.”
“I'm still sincerely happy that you're making your dream come true.”
Eight years later.
Xie Yichen became the youngest commercial airline captain in the history of Starlink Airlines.
Everyone knew he had a beloved woman in his heart, and that he had learned to fly for one person alone.
By then, Zhu Jin was a moderately well-known illustrator. She never expected their paths to cross again.
Until one day, she boarded a long-distance flight.
As the plane flew smoothly, she opened the picture book titled Starry Sky, which her mother had torn to pieces on her seventeenth birthday, then someone had secretly pieced back together.
A line on the page had long since faded:
“Don't cry. One day, I'll give you a real starry sky.”
In a daze, the captain's announcement came over the speakers, a voice both strange and familiar:
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your captain, Xie Yichen. Our plane is flying through a special airspace. Please look out the window.”
She turned at the sound, and the view outside the window matched the picture book.
Contrails lit up the Milky Way. The stars scattered across the sky seemed to shatter and fall, catching her unawares.
The captain's announcement continued:
“This starry sky is for the passenger in seat 25A.”
“Zhu Jin, happy seventeenth birthday.”
*I like you. Every star can bear witness to it.
Reading Guide [Please Read for Content Warnings]:
1. The heroine's family of origin is troubled. Her upbringing left her traumatized, and she is sensitive and prone to tears.
2. A slow-paced, gentle, slice-of-life story with few conflicts and a gradual romance. Half takes place at school, half in the city. Bittersweet first, then sweet.
3. No intimate behavior before adulthood.
4. Information about flight theory and illustration comes from online materials and documentaries. The author does not work in either field, so some industry details may be inaccurate and much is fictionalized. Please kindly point out any mistakes.
5. The blurb was screenshotted and archived on September 29, 2025.
Theme: The school uniform billowing in the breeze holds all the secrets of youth.
