Intangible Cultural Heritage Tea Master × Cunning CEO | A Twenty-Year Secret Hidden in the Scent of Tea
Yunqi Pavilion is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Lin Yanqiu is forced to sign a hundred-day marriage contract with its buyer, Gu Huaizheng. The condition: they must jointly manage the ancient tea tree plantation. He is a ruthless dealmaker hiding the mystery of his father's fall from a cliff; she is a reclusive tea master with a rare skill for grafting ancient tea trees. The golden finger hidden in the tea's “smoke-and-ink” aroma reveals not only his clumsy attempts to learn tea brewing in secret, but also half a tender leaf from the cliffside on that fateful day.
When she uses traditional tea-roasting methods on livestream to expose the fraud behind industrially produced tea, and he uses data to deconstruct traditional tea ceremonies during the acquisition, the hundred-day deadline draws near, bringing a bloody truth with it: a genetic modification journal, strange changes in the ancient tea tree, her adoptive mother's last words... He discovers that the birthmark on the back of her neck matches one in his father's old photograph. In his study, she finds an old tea tin engraved with the same tea-leaf pattern. This contract, born of mutual gain, had long since been bound by the ancient tree's rings.
“Tea smoke remembers evil.” She lowered her eyes and ran her fingers over the bracelet made of old tea branches.
He gave a soft laugh and pinched her fingertips. “Then let the tea's fragrance decide whether you're protecting the tree or I'm breaking the deadlock.”
