- #1
This started out light hearted but had a rather poetic open ending that addressed the difficulty of maintaining a long term relationship yet still provided an optimistic happy ending. The Father had some obvious flaws in his nature that were consistent from beginning to end. We never find why he developed such a controlling personality, but it doesn’t matter. He single handedly drove himself into a dead end with some inexcusable and inexplicable actions that may never be forgiven. The Stepmother was a nice change of pace from the evil cliché. She has her own selfishness, but does nothing to hurt her stepson and even protects him in her own way. The Grandfather (ML’s) took a very off hand approach to raising children, but you can tell from the character of the children he raised that he is likely of good character as well and he does love his descendants.A nice touch is that the business competition happened behind the scenes. Like one of the elders said ‘Let the adults worry about this.’ The students here focused on their job as students and treated the gaokao as their dream and salvation; their first step into adulthood. This BL story contains a strong morale about working hard despite seemingly unsurmountable obstacles as well as to enjoy your youth because it will be a period of unfounded confidence and passionate nostalgia regardless of where life takes you.All in all, it’s a really good work with a climax written well enough that at times it had me prepared to face a tragic ending. I thought at times that Song Yan may really die. The ab*se he suffered was at a level that has sent many people in real life to a bad end. His dependency on his lover strengthened tenfold after his father thrust him back into the dark place he had barely walked out of in the first place. This makes it hard for me to conclude that Song Yan is truly recovered (yet), but he should not be subjected to that kind of helplessness again. Song Yan escapes his heavy shackles and walks toward the ending of his own making. I think he will not regret even if his relationship does not last, because a failure of your own choices is much easier to accept than one brought by force majeure.
