Summer Cold

Orange Candy and Ice Boy In the midsummer of 38 degrees, the river was carrying moisture and enveloped the small town of Linjiang. Lin Zhan, whose parents divorced and was forced to transfer to another school, entered the tight and depressing experimental class of Linjiang No. 1 Middle School with an old camera left by his father and an orange-flavored hard candy. The unfamiliar environment, poor math scores, and the loneliness and uneasiness hidden in her heart made her like a kitten that strayed into its territory. She could only rely on the sweetness of her fingertips to calm her panic. A word of advice from her class teacher led her to meet Jiang Yubai, the class leader who was as cold as ice. He is thin and tall, his fingertips are bone-chilling, and his eyes are covered with a thin layer of alienating glass. He is polite but without warmth. He is the proud man that the whole class looks up to, but he also hides an unknown emptiness and fatigue. The camera is the barrier between Lin Zhan and the world. She quietly used the camera to capture his back as he was writing questions and his profile leaning against the window, but her thoughts were revealed inadvertently. A falling orange candy became the beginning of the intersection between the two. The moment the cold fingertips touched, the subtle tenderness in the light tone rippled in her heart. The sun was setting on the river, and the evening wind was blowing through the sycamore trees. She pressed the shutter on his lonely back, and the photo blurred, just like the hazy first sight. That midsummer that hides the sweetness of oranges, the shadow of an old camera and the coolness of an ice boy quietly lays the foundation for youth. Lin Zhan never knew that this midsummer ice would turn into a cold wave that swept through her entire youth, sealing that hot and sour time forever in a Linjiang summer that would never come back.