Tales of Our Youth

Mo Dong is a small-town girl whose life follows the same two-point routine: studying, and more studying. Her high school years began with an unrequited crush that seemed to come from nowhere, but it soon fell apart. Jiang Yuzhou, her deskmate, stayed by her side throughout those three years. At first, they were young and naive. Later, they kept holding back, time and again. Clearheaded and restrained, Mo Dong kept trying to convince them both by saying, “The future is uncertain.” They kept pulling each other close and pushing each other away, yet neither dared to say what was really on their minds. In the end, they both got into the universities they wanted. “Can you promise me one thing?” “Hmm?” “Don’t ask where the other one is applying. We should each go toward the best future for ourselves. You go wherever you want, and I’ll go wherever I can.” A year later, on a plane-tree-lined avenue in Nanjing, Mo Dong watched leaves drift down from the sky and was suddenly overcome with sadness. What kind of uncertain future could possibly be worth missing a whole autumn together? After missed connections, unspoken feelings, and tentative tests, they finally found their way to each other. He said, “I almost lost my life, Mo Dong.” She said, “I just suddenly realized that we’re both so young, and yet we’ve gotten so good at restraining ourselves and following all the rules. We came so close, so close to losing each other.” This is a plain, day-by-day account of “youthful days gone by.” There’s no heart-wrenching tragedy, no rekindled romance after a breakup, just two cautious hearts slowly drawing closer over a long span of time.