Before you start reading, just to assure you, no spoilers have been included in the text below!
The novel consists of 98 chapters. I will be stating my impression based on first 10 chapters. I didn't continue, cause I had feeling, I would have to stock up tissue papers, my tear glands and courage.
My impression hence forth includes only them in their coming-off age (19-FL, 22-ML). There's 7 years time skip later on, when their story actually starts!
Background Story
(Timeline : before FL was born)
The ML and FL are biologically unrelated. ML is son of a friend of FL's father from hometown. After the ML's father died, FL's father adopted him and changed his surname.
(Timeline: FL - 9 years old, ML - 13/14 years old)
Conflicts arose between FL's father and mother. Just as the synopsis says, her father took away ML to a different city and her mother took care of FL. After divorce ML continued taking FL's father's surname, whereas FL took her mother's surname.
Later on, as years passed by, their contact started reducing. At some point, they completely stopped contacting each other, when FL's father married another woman and had children. And all she was left with was memories, she missed them and hoped to talk to them, but her mother's repellance towards their contact and the fact that her father married a new family and her brother (ML) had a new sister remained a hurdle between them. She was afraid of being abandoned because her father and 'brother' (ML) had a new family.
At the age of 19, when she was preparing for her college entrance, she got to know that her mom also had foreign boyfriend and she wished to shift abroad with FL after her college entrance exam. But FL did not like her mom's boyfriend, all these factors led her to messing up her college entrance exam and she had to repeat another year. She insisted on residing in China to repeat another year, hoping to prevent her mom from going abroad, but her mom compromised by sending her to FL's dad's place to repeat another year and went abroad.
(Just to clarify, FL's mom did not abandon her, she wanted her to shift abroad too, but FL was against the idea. So her mother set condition for her to repeat another year, ace her college entrance exam and then shift abroad)
Character Sketch of main leads
(After moving to her father's place)
FL lived with her mother in a big city. And her father loved in comparatively smaller and underdeveloped city. So, as a person who was used to living in a city with great facilities, she had tough time adjusting to the small city. Despite moving to her father, they had been estranged for years, so she always had a sense of unfamiliarity towards her father and brother. She always felt like a guest in house and could not find a sense of belonging. Even in class she was a quiet student.
(Clarification: Fl has actually had good environment and growth in her childhood, she was loved by her parents, brother (ml) and was basically doted by everyone.)
ML was a good student with amazing academic performance. But after 10 years, circumstances led to things changing for him. 10 years later, he was no longer that shining bright ideal student, but a high school dropper. I am not very sure what exactly was the reason, but I am guessing their financial condition led him to being unable to continue his studies (maybe one of the factors, cause it seems her father's side isn't in a very good condition). Maybe he still dotes on fl, but he tends to keep distance from her (probably because they have separated for years and are kinda unfamiliar with each other) and from what I understood, ML probably has an inferiority complex infront of FL (in terms of relationship), thanks to their different life experiences.
Once again highlighting, only includes impression until their age 19, the story later on has a time skip of 7 years, when their romance chemistry actually kicks off.
