"Your birthmark looks like a map of Africa."
"Your pendant resembles the outline of my birthmark."
When Yan Xiahe, a working girl in a Beijing milk tea shop, and Mulani, an international student from Tanzania, touched their fingers in front of the counter where the syrup was spilled, fate had already left the mark of recognition on the two of them.
Xia He, an informal Henan girl, never thought that her spur-of-the-moment decision to be a tour guide for that "poor African student" would make her life run out of control into a cross-border romance like the shared bicycle they rode together. When Mulaney used a floral shirt to cover her torn skirt, when he taught her African beach dance, at dusk when she listened to the sound of conch shells - she heard the sound of the waves of destiny. From Beijing alleys to Zanzibar Island, from Henan braised noodles to Tanzanian paella, when Xia He discovered she was pregnant under the stars in the Serengeti grasslands, the huge waves of cultural differences also washed the lovers to different shores: bride price and dowry, settlement and wandering, career and family... When Xia He returned home in anger, Mulaney's unreserved silence was more heartbreaking than the storm in the Indian Ocean. Until one day, "Sorry" written in Swahili by a drone rose up from the Yellow River, and eight Tanzanian nannies appeared at the door of Xia He's home holding twins. The once shy young man from the fishing village has now grown into a multinational businessman who can chat and laugh at the Chinese wine table. "Ruru and Yiyi are our mixed-race treasures," Mulaney put the ebony bracelet back on his wife's wrist, "and you gave me the courage to venture into the world."
