At Least We Met Early

It was the height of summer in Xinlin in 2019. Whenever Lin Liang Le looked out the window, she could see the towering plane trees beside the classroom building casting a broad shadow.

Lin Liang Le sat there, time and again slowly covering the initials of Dai Qinghuai’s name on her scratch paper with the steps for solving a difficult final problem on derivatives.

She loved the feeling of filling one thing with another. It helped her hide her pent-up thoughts deep inside.

Dai Qinghuai sat in the third row by the window. When Lin Liang Le occasionally glanced back, she could see him looking down at his problems, a pen spinning endlessly between his fingers as if it had some kind of perpetual-motion engine inside.

As a girl, she was insecure and awkward, always convinced that a secret crush was something utterly private. So she never spoke any of her youthful feelings aloud.

Lin Liang Le always thought she’d hidden her feelings well, and naturally assumed she was a nobody in Dai Qinghuai’s life.

That was until they met again at Z University. The clear-eyed boy had shed some of his childishness. In a sudden downpour, he held his umbrella over her and said earnestly, “I like you.”

From then on, the world fell silent.

In the afternoon, sunlight always shone through the windows on the top floor of the library, falling on the shelves by the window.

Whenever Dai Qinghuai passed the pillars, he often saw the girl stretching up on her toes to reach for a book, her back straight and taut.

Sometimes it was Stray Birds, sometimes Walden. She especially loved essays and San Mao, from Notes of a Carefree Woman to The Rainy Season Will Never Come Again.

That was the conclusion Dai Qinghuai reached after observing her.

His uncle, an English teacher, often told him that words had a spirit of their own.

Dai Qinghuai didn’t expect that spirit to suddenly enter his mind one day and save him from his hopelessly bad essays. But he heard his uncle mention the name “Lin Liang Le” so often that he couldn’t help paying attention.

“You can tell what kind of person someone is from their writing.”

Dai Qinghuai would later think that this was the most meaningful thing his uncle had ever said.

Reader’s guide:

1. The blurb is in third person, while the main text is in first person. First person makes the narration flow more smoothly and has no connection to real life.

2. A slow-burn, slice-of-life story with a light ensemble feel, set in school and adulthood. They reunite, but it’s not a broken relationship getting back together. Mutual secret crushes, bittersweet and sweet, with plenty of angst over nothing. Please don’t read if that bothers you.

3. No real-life inspirations. Please don’t make weird comparisons.

Theme: A good life, moving forward every day.