Two lives were born at the same time in a secluded alley of a poor small town, a boy and a girl. Perhaps it was fate. Or perhaps it was because they believed the fortune-teller's words that if they wanted to keep the children alive, they had to be betrothed as soon as they were born. So the two families arranged a childhood engagement. The boy's mother pointed at the girl and said: "She will be your wife in the future." The boy giggled, but the girl burst into tears. That year, they understood nothing.
In laughter and tears, two years passed. One day, the boy learned how to use chopsticks, and immediately asked his mother to take him to the girl's house to show off. After seeing the boy's skills with chopsticks, the girl cried because she couldn't do it herself. When the boy returned home, he also cried because he saw the girl crying. From then on, the boy insisted on not using chopsticks during meals. Later, the girl finally learned how to use chopsticks, but by then the boy had forgotten how to use them.
At the age of three, both the boy and the girl went to kindergarten. One day, during nap time, the girl wet her bed. The kindergarten teacher asked angrily who had done it. Scared, the girl cried, and the boy raised his hand and said: "Teacher, it was me." However, the teacher still noticed that the girl's pants were wet and informed her mother. The girl, angry, pointed at the boy and said: "It must have been you who told the teacher. I will never talk to you again." The next day, the boy urinated on his own bed and reported it to the teacher, who scolded him until he cried.
At the age of seven, it was time for the first grade. In the first semester, the boy ranked first in the exams, and both the teacher and parents praised him. The girl also performed well, but she went home angry. For several years after that, the boy refused to take any exams until the fifth grade when the girl happily brought home the first place. However, the boy had no results. The boy's mother was so angry that she beat him until he couldn't get out of bed. It was only later through the teacher that they learned that for some unknown reason, the boy refused to take exams and refused to care about his grades. The teacher had no choice but to let him take exams separately without publishing the results.
Six years passed, and both the boy and the girl entered the same school. By this time, both sets of parents had lost their jobs and could only make a living doing odd jobs. At lunchtime in the school canteen, the girl always left food on her plate. Every time, she would tell the boy: "I don't want to waste food." Without hesitation, the boy would eat all the leftovers. Throughout junior high school, one always ranked first while the other had no grades. In the high school entrance exam, the girl was admitted to a provincial key high school with the best score in the school, while the boy failed. Crying, the girl asked the boy why and how this happened. The boy said: "I haven't studied for a long time. I just didn't want you to be alone in school." Actually, there was another reason: the family could no longer afford schooling for both of them, but the boy wanted the girl to continue her education, even though his actual scores were better than hers. This summer was the happiest time for the boy because the girl stayed with him every day and never got mad or threw tantrums. To the boy, it felt like living in paradise, and the girl's smile was the source of all his happiness.
The next day, the girl was going to the provincial capital. That night, neither of them slept. They sat by the door until midnight. The girl couldn't stop crying; she wasn't used to life without the boy. For so many years, he had allowed her to bully him and had always taken care of her. Without him by her side, she felt afraid.
The next day, the girl took a bus to the city. On the way, she saw the boy. He was carrying a bundle and stopped a car to board. The girl asked: "Why are you here?" The boy replied: "This way we can save half the fare." Both of them laughed. Afterward, the girl lived frugally at school, while the boy worked hard at the construction site to earn money, sending it monthly in an envelope addressed to the girl's mother. The girl always found time to visit the boy, and the last thing the boy would say to her before she left was: "Study hard and go to university."
One day, when the girl visited the boy, she said: "A boy told me he likes me. What should I do?" The boy was stunned, then said to the girl: "Just study hard, okay? It's better to talk about it after university." The boy didn't dare to look at the girl, who smiled and said: "I lied to him and told him I already have a boyfriend." The boy laughed and said: "There will be better ones after university." After the girl left, the boy didn't speak for several days, working tirelessly, shedding sweat and tears.
For three years, the girl never returned home, studying even during holidays. Neither did the boy return home, finding other work during holidays.
Three years of hard study finally paid off, and the girl was admitted to a prestigious university. The day she received her admission notice, the boy and the girl hugged each other happily. The boy cried, feeling that the girl would be further and further away from him. All he wanted was for her to live well. As for himself, he thought that suffering and hardship were irrelevant. On their way home together, both families praised the girl for being diligent, making her feel somewhat heartbroken.
To pay for her university tuition, the girl tutored other children at home, while the boy did odd jobs outside. By the time it was time to leave, the girl, with the money she earned and the money from home, finally boarded the bus to university with the boy, heading to an even more prosperous city. At university, the girl continued to live frugally and found a part-time job, while the boy still worked hard on a construction team to help the girl save for her tuition. One day, someone told the girl: "There is someone outside looking for you. They claim to have found something of yours and want you to come and retrieve it." The girl went out and saw the boy standing far away, wearing dirty clothes covered in dust from the construction site. The girl walked over, brushing the dirt off the boy and asked: "Why did you say you found my stuff? Why didn't you say you're my fellow townsman or friend?" The boy smiled and said: "Look at what I'm wearing. If I said I'm your fellow townsman or friend, wouldn't I embarrass you?" The girl started crying and said to the boy: "How could you think that? Have I ever looked down on you?" The boy consoled the girl until she stopped crying. Then he carefully took out a hair clip with diamonds from his pocket and placed it in the girl's hand, saying: "I saw people in the city wearing these. You'd look better than them wearing it." The girl cried even harder.
Not long after, the girl received a call from someone who worked with the boy. They said the boy had been injured on the job, and his arm was crushed. When the girl arrived at the hospital, one of the boy's arms was already gone, lying in the hospital bed. The girl approached the boy with tears streaming down her face. The boy opened his eyes, saw the girl, and immediately excitedly told her: "We have money now. Your tuition can be paid tomorrow." Confused, the girl listened as the boy explained: "I bought insurance just a few days ago. Haha." The girl realized that the boy intentionally caused an accident to break his arm because he feared he wouldn't be able to pay the girl's tuition. The girl cried and said: "I'd rather not go to university than have you earn money this way." The next day, the school issued a notice that the girl's tuition had been paid. The boy took the remaining few thousand yuan back home and opened a small store, just enough for daily living. After the boy returned home, the girl wrote countless letters, but the boy never replied. During holidays, the girl worked at school instead of returning home, but the boy stubbornly refused to see her, despite missing her immensely. Finally, in the girl's senior year, the boy came to see her. Now, the girl had grown into a beautiful young woman, elegant and refined. The boy's heart sank. Already hesitant to express his feelings to her, he now buried his emotions deep within. Instead of hugging each other joyfully upon meeting, the girl gave the boy only a cold face. The girl hated him, hated him for ruining his life by doing what he did back then, hated him for disappearing for so many years, and hated him for ignoring her when he said he wouldn't. She also hated him for promising to talk after university but never mentioning anything now that she was in her senior year. The two were silent throughout their meeting. The boy went home, and the girl spent the entire night at the station, crying the whole time.
One day a few months later, a woman came to the boy's home. She was introduced as the boy's fiancée by his family. Knowing they weren't good enough for the girl, and sensing the girl's family might not approve of the relationship between the girl and the boy, the marriage was quickly arranged. The boy called the girl to tell her he was getting married. Trembling, the girl asked who it was, and the boy replied: "A rural girl from the edge of the town. She's nice, except she has only one eye." The girl hung up the phone, immediately took leave, and bought a ticket to go home. Upon arriving at the boy's house, she saw the boy cooking with his only hand. She wanted to help him but saw a woman walking out with a dish. The girl cried, crying as she approached the boy and said: "Didn't you remember that I was the one who was engaged to you first? We had a childhood engagement." The boy also cried and said to the girl: "You deserve a better life, and I am disabled and unable to take care of you anymore. Besides, our parents don't agree with us being together."
The girl rushed home and knelt before her parents, recounting the past events: how in kindergarten, the boy urinated in bed to avoid embarrassing her and got scolded by the teacher; how in elementary school, the boy stopped taking exams for years because he was afraid the girl would be upset if her grades were worse than his, and how he was beaten by his mother until he couldn't get out of bed; how in junior high school, he ate all her leftover food for three years; and how in high school, the boy deliberately broke his own arm to ensure she could attend school... After hearing the story, the two elders were moved to tears. The girl's father said: "If you don't marry him to repay his kindness, you're not human!"...
The girl graduated and smoothly found a job in a foreign company with a monthly salary of over 20,000 yuan. In the fourth month after starting work, the girl returned home. Everyone in their town envied the girl but pitied the boy. Her attire and appearance were far removed from this poor town, but after seeing the girl, the boy truly gave up hope. She belonged to the upper class, not to him, who was both poor and disabled.
The girl gave the woman 5,000 yuan. Although the woman took the money and prepared to leave, she left the girl with words that would encourage her for life: "Truly loving someone once in a lifetime is not easy. He gave you lifelong happiness, and you can only repay him with your entire life." Yes, she had always intended to repay him with her entire life. She had never thought of betraying him. Ever since they were little, and especially since the moment he said he would leave her in junior high school, she realized that her entire life belonged to him.
The woman left, and the girl approached the boy with victorious joy, saying: "Can you finally tell me what you should have told me in university?" The boy had said it tens of thousands of times in his heart, but every time he saw her, he dared not say it. Staring blankly at her, he wasn't unclear about her meaning; he just couldn't believe that this girl, who was so different now, would still consider him and still think of him. The boy shook his head: "I don't want to delay you." The girl became extremely angry, crying: "When you dropped out of school and worked for me, my heart had already belonged to you. Could what you've done over the years be something an ordinary person could do?" The girl hugged the boy and kissed him. The boy's tears tasted sweet as they flowed into his mouth. He knew everything was real. Finally, with all his strength, he embraced the girl and trembled as he said the words he had wanted to say his entire life: "I... love... you."