"There's Someone in the Backstage" is a warm and inspirational novel with the core image of "late-ripening rice ears". It tells the story of the slow-moving and sensitive children's illustrator Su Wansui's growth and reconciliation in career, family and love.
Su Wansui always felt that she was slower than her peers. In the workplace, she was incompatible with the company because of her insistence on creative ideas. In her childhood, she had many grievances due to her family's excessive attention to her cousin. Her relationship with her parents was also full of gaps due to alienation. By chance, at the retirement ceremony of her university tutor, she reunited with her senior brother Chen Xu, who had been a tacit partner - now a well-known architect. The reappearance of Chen Xu was like a beam of light shining into her routine life. He not only encouraged her to resign and start her own illustration studio "Suishe", but also slowly entered her closed heart with the patience and sincerity that remained unchanged for many years.
The story contains the struggle and perseverance in the workplace, the estrangement and warmth of family affection, the waiting and two-way rush of love, and a gentle interpretation of "late maturity" - just like ears of rice, they grow slowly but bear heavily. The ending is happy and full of regrets. Her grandmother failed to witness her growth, and Huang Li, her boss who once made things difficult for her, is finally a thing of the past. But these imperfections just make "growth" more real. Everyone who "takes his time" in life can find resonance in Su Wansui's story: Take your time, and you will eventually wait for your own moonlight.
