[Resilient, delicate heroine] [Guiding, supportive male lead]
At seventeen, Chen Yu wore a white ribbon around her left wrist and listened to a loop of her own cover of "Mack the Knife" through her headphones.
She remembered how piercing the cicadas had sounded when she was twelve. When turning down the class monitor's confession became evidence against her, photoshopped cigarette-butt pictures and rumors ate away at the height of summer like sulfuric acid.
As she swallowed the pills, she thought the darkness would stretch into an endless night.
Until Bai Yan slapped a throat lozenge down on her desk.
The older boy next door, who was always playing computer games, awkwardly measured out his care and soothed her wounds.
He was like a daylight that never burned, silently bringing to a boil every damp night in her life.
But she insisted on tearing open the peace.
During the summer vacation of her second year of high school, Chen Yu slipped a love letter into the drawer in his room.
"I don't want to be your little sister. I don't want to stand behind you. I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with you."
A long-distance relationship was like an old radio tuned to the wrong frequency.
Different universities, but hearts beating in sync.
That night at the class reunion, the rumor-monger apologized drunkenly.
Chen Yu smiled and turned her wedding ring. The inside was engraved with Bai Yan's employee ID number.
The giant screen suddenly began playing a diary of hers that he had taken when she was fifteen. On the last page, fresh handwriting had been added:
"The scars on Chen Yu are growth rings growing in reverse, while my ribs have long since been forged into support beams.
They hold up all your wavering songs, and the rusty yet radiant rest of your life."
Theme: Healing, growth, and opposition to bullying
