Introduction to the work:
On the spring playground in April 2024, the girl's eyes were caught by the moment when Zhou Yan, a boy from Class 7, Grade 2, high school, jumped high - his back arched into a silver arc when he jumped, and his white T-shirt was blown up by the wind, like a blue and white butterfly about to flutter its wings. This moment became the starting point of a secret that plunged her into a secret love that lasted for 429 days.
Zhou Yan is not a top student in the traditional sense. His name in the middle of his report card, his silly smile that occasionally makes him distracted, and the simple drawing of a butterfly on the edge of his textbook all form his unique profile. The girl collected fragments about him with microscope-like eyes: the silhouette leaning on the railing while drinking iced Coke during lunch break, the muscle lines exposed under the rolled-up cuffs while running, the fine sand thrown up when she landed on the high jump... These details were neatly recorded in a locked diary, paired with stolen sketches and scraps of paper sandwiched like specimens, becoming a rare collection in the amber of time.
She hid behind the bookshelf and watched him flipping through the "Butterfly Illustrated Book", pretending to encounter him in the corridor just to catch his footsteps, and even calculated the physical distance between the two classrooms - Class 7 and Class 11, separated by a floor and countless moments of hesitation. On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, she finally plucked up the courage to take a group photo. In the camera, he smiled carelessly, while her stiff smile hid the throbbing of the whole spring.
The story outlines the multiple dimensions of secret love with a sour touch: it is the fading blue butterfly specimen in the diary, the high jump arc repeatedly traced on the draft paper, the three-brick distance deliberately maintained in the group photo, and a grand self-fulfillment in youth. When the sunshine of the graduation season once again illuminated the playground, the girl inserted the photos into her diary and finally understood that secret love is like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, and that pain and beauty are the golden tapestry of growth. Those unspoken thoughts will eventually condense into eternal specimens of courage and relief in the folds of time.
Style: Delicate as butterfly scale powder under a microscope, it uses synaesthesia description and physical metaphor to construct a multi-dimensional space of secret love. The restrained text hides a volcanic heartbeat frequency.
Concept: sour youth, self-growth