In the autumn of the first year of junior high school, Su Yuqian secretly slipped a sycamore leaf into her diary - it was a leaf that Lu Yan threw up casually and fell into her palm with the wind. It was also the starting point of her long secret love.
In the past three years, she did everything she could to chase without fanfare: going around half a circle during running exercises just to pass by the window of his classroom; tracing the word "Lu Yan" on the grade list in red, and writing her name far behind. Until the third year of junior high school, she put the dry sycamore leaf in front of her desk and wrote "I want to be with him" one stroke at a time. Then she counterattacked like a dark horse and was admitted to the best high school in the city.
In the senior year of high school, fate wrote their names on the same red list, but they diverge: Su Yuqian went to the military academy, cut his hair short and tanned his skin; Lu Yan stayed at a key university and continued his career in the laboratory.
We meet again at the class reunion seven years later. She stood in the crowd wearing a military uniform, like a tall and tall sycamore; he was holding a wine glass and recognized her at a glance through the sound of people and the light.
This time, Lu Yan handed a fresh sycamore leaf to her palm - the veins were clear and the edges were jagged, like being blown by the wind when he was young. He said: "Su Yuqian, I will chase you this time."
The secret love traveled over mountains and ridges, and finally grew into two trees side by side.
The sycamore leaves fall and are reborn.
Intent: What "Putong Leaves" wants to write about is a belief in "growing towards the light":
True love is not to look up in the dust, but to grow into a tree beside him.
Secret love can be the starting point, but it cannot be the end; only when a person transforms the light for others into the fire that illuminates himself, can he be qualified to meet as equals.
The sycamore leaves fall every year and are reborn every year - it reminds us that growth is a long process of photosynthesis, turning bitter secret love, lonely counterattack, and parting regret into upward power.
When Su Yuqian finally stood in front of Lu Yan with a tall posture, she was no longer the girl who picked up leaves back then, but a new leaf that could shine on its own.
Therefore, this story is not only about love, but also about "becoming a better version of yourself."
It tells everyone who has ever looked up in the dark:
What you are chasing is not only a certain person, but also yourself awakened by that beam of light.
When you are bright enough, the wind will blow fellow travelers towards you; then, all the misses and waiting will be like sycamore leaves——
Falling down is for a more brilliant encounter next time.