In 2008, Zhong Qing met the family who had just moved in next door.
A boy carrying a cello stepped into her field of vision.
He didn't talk much or smile, and even his answers were stiff and formal. She thought her mother's friend's son was a strange block of wood.
Later, he looked at Zhong Qing and told her, word by word,
"My name is Li Xiachi. Xia as in summer, chi as in late."
Li Xiachi. Li Xiachi. A summer that arrived late.
Zhong Qing found Li Xiachi annoying. He played his stupid cello all day long, in the morning, at noon, and at night.
The cello music ringing out upstairs accompanied Zhong Qing through the whole summer, and she and Li Xiachi never spoke.
She wrote in her diary:
"Li Xiachi's cello is so annoying. I hate him!!!"
Until she rushed into the boys' bathroom with a broom handle and rescued Li Xiachi from his bullies, fierce and domineering as ever.
"You're annoying, but I'll protect you from now on."
That's what Zhong Qing said.
From that day on, the strange-tempered Li Xiachi had a bodyguard by his side:
The troublemaker Zhong Qing, so fearsome that even dogs turn away and ghosts run scared.
The summer of their seventeenth year was sweltering. They collided with a bang, sparks flying. But before the blaze could catch, summer disappeared.
Zhong Qing only remembers chasing that taxi for a long time, but Li Xiachi never showed up.
So she said again:
"I'll never forgive Li Xiachi."
Ten years later, on her way to a blind date, Zhong Qing sees Li Xiachi, who vanished ten years ago, in a fruit shop. She sees the summer she lost.
"Well, you're still alive," Zhong Qing says with a mocking smile, then turns and leaves.
Theme: Look ahead.
