The Evening Breeze Knows Summer's Meaning, Cicadas Sing in Our Youth

The wind was hot, cicadas buzzed noisily, and a young heart burned with its own dreams. The story focuses on the junior high school years of a group of rural teenagers in the 1990s. After graduation, over ninety percent of the children would have to leave home for work, swept along by the tide of the times.

The era was materially poor, but its spirit was vibrant. They sat in drafty classrooms, listening to cicadas outside the windows and secretly dreaming of a distant future. Their parents were all farmers who worked the land. A sack of wheat and a jar of pickled vegetables were all the provisions the children had at school, and the teenagers were left almost entirely to fend for themselves.

They had once been confident, vivid, and fierce, believing themselves to be exceptional. But when the dust of the times settled, it became a mountain pressing down on their shoulders. Years later, some became taxi drivers, factory workers, or construction laborers. Others became ordinary office workers, rushing around delivering food and parcels. The once-dazzling teenagers gradually became unremarkable young people and middle-aged adults in the city, until they grew old and faded into silence, forgotten by the world. Even those who seemed to have found success could be knocked down by the waves of life and never get back up.

The evening breeze swept across the sports field, and the old days turned a page. These teenagers struggled to grow in the cracks between the times, doing their best to make faint flowers bloom. This is a tribute to youth, whether it was passionate or filled with regrets.