I Write a Love Letter on the Answer Sheet of the Top Student in My Grade

Jiang Yanchi had a secret: before the high school entrance exam, he deliberately scored forty points below what he could have, hiding himself in forty-seventh place in the grade.

He'd planned to keep the secret for three years. During the placement exam at the start of term, he handed in his paper twenty minutes early. As he passed Shen Zhixia, he glanced at her answer sheet. She had left out one solution in the last question on page three. He hesitated for half a second, pulled a sheet of scratch paper from her desk, and wrote a line. He didn't sign it, leaving only the character "Jiang."

Shen Zhixia stared at the line for ten seconds. Then she looked up and called to Jiang Yanchi, who had already reached the classroom door.

"Stop."

Those were the first words they ever exchanged. Jiang Yanchi only learned later that Shen Zhixia had remembered him for far longer than the writing had remained on that sheet of scratch paper.

Later still, the whole school knew: the top two students in the grade were setting each other challenging problems. Someone saw a line on the back of Shen Zhixia's answer sheet, written in someone else's handwriting. It said, "It's okay if you can't solve this one. I'll wait for you."

Shen Zhixia wrote underneath it, "It's not certain who's waiting for whom."

Later still, she put that answer sheet in a folder and never handed it in.

Two top students, one keeping his talents hidden, the other showing hers openly. It began with a single "Jiang" on a sheet of scratch paper and ended with two lines on the final answer sheet. The sweetness is real, the satisfaction is real, and it has a happy ending.