The movie ended there.
Inside the theater, every audience member looked a bit lost.
You couldn't fully understand this film after just one watch.
But even if you didn't grasp it all, you could at least catch some part of it.
Many felt a lump in their throat and didn't even know why they wanted to cry—yet as soon as they saw that sketch on the back of the borrowing card, the tears welled up anyway.
Tang Yun held back her tears, rushed out of the theater, and immediately bought a ticket for the next showing of 'Love Letter'.
Half an hour later, she was back in her seat.
But this time, her experience of the movie was completely different.
The slow, drawn-out build-up at the start was still there—but Tang Yun was captivated.
Through her correspondence with Fujii Itsuki, Watanabe Hiroko finally uncovered the truth about the real Fujii Itsuki.
And in that process... the female Fujii Itsuki discovered her own feelings too.
Just classmates with the same name?
If he were just a forgettable classmate, would she really remember him so vividly?
Maybe after so many years, she no longer thought of him, but once someone mentioned the male Fujii Itsuki, memories of their time together surfaced from the depths of her heart.
She avoided getting too close to him—because of that confession scene, when a girl from another class was rejected.
Tang Yun looked back up at the screen. The expression on the girl in that memory—the female Fujii Itsuki—was filled with subtleties she could now understand.
That's why, during the sports festival later on, she didn't dare look at him. Yet her video camera somehow captured every moment of his appearance.
The movie reached the scene where the female Fujii Itsuki waited for hours in the bike parking area to return a test paper.
"Did you take the wrong foreign language test paper today?"
"It's too dark, I can't see."
Just because of that one line from the male Fujii Itsuki, she pedaled her bike to generate electricity, lighting the bicycle lamp to help him read.
She told him off, but her eyes never left his profile.
If she didn't like him, would she have gone to all that effort to light up his world?
In the library, when she helped Sanae confess to the male Fujii Itsuki:
"Do you like anyone?"
He glanced at her—then answered:
"No."
Why was he angry there?
Because she was trying to set him up with another girl.
Why was she angry?
Because he said he didn't like anyone.
If, on the day the male Fujii Itsuki came to her house, her father hadn't passed away—he definitely would've confessed, wouldn't he?
And if she had flipped over the card inside the book when she returned it to the library, she would've seen what he felt for her.
But everything had just lined up that way.
And so, that brief meeting became their last.
Through their letters, Watanabe Hiroko realized the person Fujii Itsuki had loved all along was the female Fujii Itsuki. That it had been love at first sight. Maybe he truly came to love Watanabe Hiroko later on—but at first, he only started dating her because he couldn't forget his middle school classmate with the same name.
And maybe the female Fujii Itsuki, only when she learned of his death, understood just how deeply this boy—tucked away in her memory—had mattered to her heart.
When the two-hour movie again reached its final moment—
When the book was delivered to Fujii Itsuki's home by students from her old school—
When that sketch reappeared on screen—
Tang Yun, sitting in the theater for her second viewing, could no longer hold back.
This film was called 'Love Letter'.
A love letter, delayed by more than ten years. A love letter from someone long gone, delivered to the living.
The name written on the library card was hers.
The film never once said the words "I love you", but love was in every frame.
Walking out of the theater, Tang Yun felt an indescribable heaviness in her chest.
She opened the movie discussion group.
"Being tsundere ruins everything!"
"I was in tears. Both of them clearly liked each other. Why didn't they just confess?"
"Come on, they were in middle school! That kind of feeling at that age is blurry and confusing. They both fell for each other too hard. Even after university, the male Fujii Itsuki still couldn't forget her. That's why his girlfriend, Watanabe Hiroko, looked just like her. And the female Fujii Itsuki—she might've seemed to have moved on, but all her memories of him weren't gone, just sealed away."
"The saddest one is Watanabe Hiroko. She finally realized her late fiancé's true feelings."
"I think he really loved Watanabe Hiroko, too. But he just couldn't forget Fujii Itsuki. That's probably why he never married her. Sigh."
"That final sketch totally wrecked me."
" Xia Yining and Yu Youqing's performances were amazing! Especially Yu Youqing—playing two roles and yet never breaking immersion."
"I think the female Fujii Itsuki didn't realize she'd always loved him... until the very end, when she saw that sketch on the card."
"Yeah, I get that. Sometimes you like someone without realizing it—until something triggers you to finally understand."
"That's why Watanabe Hiroko kept hinting at it in her letters. The female Fujii Itsuki just didn't believe it. She couldn't accept that he liked her, or that she liked him."
"I saw it with my girlfriend. I didn't get it the first time, but she cried like crazy. Second time around, I got it too—and cried just like her."
"I can't handle movies like this. Slow burns hit the hardest. I wanted them to confess and end up together, but he's already dead!"
"Yeah... what hurts the most is that after she finally understood his feelings—and her own—there was no way to go back. The one who loved her... the one she loved... was already gone."
Qixi Festival (Valentine's Day) in the daytime was just the appetizer. The evening was the real highlight.
Most couples who watched movies that day were only keeping an eye on two charts:
One for ratings, and one for box office.
At 5 PM, 'Summer Dream' was still ranked #1 at the box office with 81 million.
But in second place, 'Love Letter' was hot on its heels at 78 million.
The gap wasn't big.
But the difference in ratings? That was massive.
'Summer Dream' scored 8.6—a solid score, and considered a quality film.
But 'Love Letter'? 9.5.
325,000 people on Yindou Net gave it a 9.5 on opening day.
That was outrageous.
No time for word-of-mouth to spread—just pure, raw first impressions from the audience.
And somehow... nearly everyone agreed. Even the internet trolls went silent.
Compared to 'Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal''s legendary 9.4 score, 'Love Letter''s debut was even more unbelievable.
Many film critics walked out of theaters with dazed eyes.
Not that the film had completely shaken them, but the story had kept tugging at their hearts the entire way through.
The memories between the two Fujii Itsukis. That final sketch.
To some, it might've seemed overly sentimental—but for those who felt it, all they could think was:
Regret. Bitterness. Beauty.
Perhaps, that's exactly what this film wanted to tell its viewers:
People may die—but longing... never does.
'Summer Dream' may be a good film, but it was just that: good.
In terms of emotional resonance and emotional pull, 'Love Letter' blew all other romantic films of the season out of the water.
That evening, after every screening of 'Love Letter', there were always girls coming out in tears.
Online, the film's reputation soared rapidly. Just like what happened when 'Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal' was released, fans who had seen 'Love Letter' started recommending it everywhere.
And when midnight struck, marking the official close of Qixi Festival releases—
'Love Letter' finished its first day with 93 million in box office sales.
'Summer Dream' ended with 87 million.
When the final numbers were announced—
The director and screenwriter of 'Summer Dream', Wang Ande and Huang Zhiyu, couldn't sleep that night.
A few million difference in box office? That wasn't the real problem.
What crushed them... was how overwhelmingly the audience's hearts leaned toward 'Love Letter'.