Xu Sui, a young woman from the community, is on her thirteenth blind date when she meets Cheng Yuan, a mess-hall squad leader covered in mud.
He is always helping elderly people who live alone repair their roofs on stormy days, and he keeps fruit candy in his toolbox to cheer up children. She often hangs the community center key from the belt of her camouflage uniform, and her thermos is full of chrysanthemum tea to cool him down.
There are no dramatic, life-or-death rescues. There is only the mint on the mess-hall windowsill sprouting new leaves, the food safety tips he writes by hand and posts on the community noticeboard, and the throat lozenges she slips into his camouflage pants pocket, one by one.
When the first cluster of bluebells sways on the wasteland by the garrison, he holds out the muddy roots and asks her, “Officer Xu, would you be willing to take charge of my little ‘plot of responsibility’?”
