Autumn 2014. A sketchbook appears on the desk of Su Chen, a second-year high school student. He is used to drawing the trees outside the window, the exam papers on his desk, and the silhouettes in the classroom. He draws things that are silent, quiet, and fleeting—because he believes that what is drawn is truer than what is said. What he doesn’t know is that three girls are about to walk into his frame. The girl in front of him has a pencil case printed with "Ge Wu Zhi Zhi" (Seek Knowledge Through Inquiry). She zips her uniform to the top, stacks her textbooks neatly, and lives each day as others expect her to—yet in the secret hours of the night, she writes a different story under a different name. The senior from the Broadcasting Club is always smiling, always saying "it's okay," always taking care of everyone. She is like the autumn sun: warm, yet distant. As the countdown to graduation flips another page, how much time does she have left for herself? On the sports field, a junior with bright eyes and a stubborn heart sketches beside him. She hides her secrets in a clay deer, her heart in her sketchbook, and sees you as the light shining into her world—unaware that you, too, are searching for light. This is a story about sincerity. It is about words left unspoken, steps left untaken, and feelings left unconfessed. It is about backs bent under expectation, farewells rushed by time, and long nights lit up by warmth. It is about the clumsy, stubborn, and careful— youth. Three routes. Three confessions. It begins in autumn and ends in summer. You open the first page of the sketchbook and write down your own answer.
