Qīng Méi Yǔ

When I was ten, I fell from a tree and hit my head. When I woke up, the world around me had changed. I could see people’s emotions in the form of numbers and colours—pink for love, red for anger, green for awkwardness, blue for sorrow, yellow for desire…

I met Yan Kongshan the summer after college entrance exams on Green Plum Island. Mysterious and handsome, with a tinge of melancholy, he was the ideal man of every woman on the island. And mine. I wanted him to turn pink for me, but one day, he suddenly turned yellow. Despite that, he seemed ever so nonchalant when facing me.

Love is like lemon soda water. Sour and sweet, filled with energy. You never know how a person’s heart beats for you, hidden in its cage beneath their flesh.