Free short story, also known as The Eleventh Year I Spent with Her
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In 2009, three months before the college entrance exams, Lu Xia's parents died in a car accident. She had no choice but to transfer from a prestigious high school in Beijing to a county high school.
People there couldn't stand her pampered ways. Even her new deskmate tried to scare her with a snake. She really wanted to go back to Beijing.
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She thought those three short months would be just a fleeting moment in her eighteenth year, but the boy from the stuffy little county town left his mark on her heart.
After the college entrance exams, Lu Xia and Li Heyu had met only twice, and both times he had helped her.
On the day she left for Beijing, Lu Xia watched everyone around her being sent off by their parents and friends, and felt a pang of sadness. Before she entered the station, Li Heyu came running over, drenched in sweat. She thought he was there to see someone else off, until he called her name.
"Take care of yourself in Beijing. You're so delicate, you can't handle much hardship."
She had lived in Beijing for over a decade. How could she not be used to life there?
"What about you? Where are you going to study?"
"Shenzhen. Heading south."
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Beijing and Shenzhen were 1,800 kilometers apart. Lu Xia thought they would never meet again. Until one bitter winter, when a boy waited all night beneath her dormitory building.
They spent the coldest day in Beijing together. On the day Li Heyu returned to Shenzhen, Lu Xia went to see him off. He waved goodbye, but she couldn't bear to let him go, and ran toward him against the icy wind.
"Li Heyu, is a twenty-nine-hour train ride far?"
The boy drew back the hand he had been about to raise to touch her. To see the girl he loved, it wasn't far at all.
"Li Heyu, you're the person who's been nicest to me, apart from my mom and dad."
"Li Heyu, let's date."
The eighteen-year-old boy had once declared he would never like a pampered girl like her, but in that moment, his heart betrayed him all the same.
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A year has four seasons, twelve months, and three hundred sixty-five days.
We've spent eleven springs, summers, autumns, and winters together.
Reading notes:
· Mutual unrequited love
· Bittersweet ending short story
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Coming soon:
The Piano Effect
The summer after the college entrance exams, Li Chi started dating her class's top student, Xi Yanci.
He was 187 centimeters tall, loved shooting and swimming, had a great body and a face that could beguile anyone. Yet for all his rakish looks, he had never dated anyone.
One day, on a whim, she asked if he wanted to go to university with her in Beicheng.
The boy curled his lips into a smile and silently agreed.
He was the one who initiated their relationship.
He loved having her sit on his lap while he played video games, loved her turning to him for help when he taught her to swim, loved the shape of her lips when she fell asleep... He loved her so much. He lightly traced her lips with his tongue and said, "Baby, I love you so much. What do we do if we can't be apart?"
But she was the one who ended their relationship, leaving for Nancheng alone.
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Years later, Li Chi's career and love life had both hit rock bottom, and she became a volunteer teacher in Huaijiang.
The education system in poor areas was under-resourced, so people often sent donations. The school administrators assigned her and another female teacher to meet a donor at the station.
The other teacher complained, wondering who was so important that someone had to go pick them up. Li Chi just smiled without saying a word.
She looked up as a man stepped out of the car. The other teacher fell silent, and Li Chi's smile faded as she nervously clenched her palm.
They hadn't seen each other in years, but he was still as captivating and dazzling as ever.
Two buttons were undone at the collar of his white shirt, and his black dress pants made his legs look long and straight. A female teacher from the same school blushed and asked for his contact information, but he just smiled and politely declined.
She greeted him, trying to act as if she had moved on, but he ignored her completely. When they broke up, he'd told her never to let him see her again.
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That summer in Huaijiang was unusually rainy. After work, Li Chi returned to the dormitory assigned to her by the school and saw the man with wet hair standing at the door. She let him in.
The night rain pattered on without stopping.
Li Chi's forehead was slick with sweat as she grimaced and bit the man's shoulder through the pain. "Didn't you pretend you couldn't see me?"
The man groaned and wrapped an arm around her slender waist to keep her from falling. "I must be sick to come here looking for you."
Theme: Don't live in the past.
🥺 🥺 Why do you have to write negative reviews about the male protagonist suffering from cancer?