Born Toward the Flames

Lin Yan was once a top interior designer, but after an accident on a landmark project got her blacklisted by the industry and abandoned by her lover, she fell from the heights of winning the Golden Compass Award to the lowest point in her life. To make ends meet, she traded her tailored suits and limited-edition fountain pens for a dust-covered down jacket, trudged around noisy construction sites in work boots, took on small projects no one else wanted, and faced difficult clients and the dilemma of safety disputes.

From her calm confidence at proposal meetings to her self-deprecating laughter as she picked up a broken hard hat beside a concrete floor; from her perfectionism about design details to poring over grease-stained blueprints with workers to discuss construction; from doubting herself in the face of adversity to firmly refusing unreasonable demands to uphold basic safety standards, Lin Yan gradually shed the shackles of her “success” label through repeated clashes with reality and began to reassess her own worth.

She rediscovered her resilience amid the wind and dust of construction sites, found warmth in her relationships with an intern and the construction workers, and, while designing an activity room for a children's welfare home, touched upon the essence of design: “creating happiness for people.” In the end, with one solid design after another and one sincere act of perseverance after another, Lin Yan founded a small studio and climbed out of her darkest days. She rebuilt not only her career, but also, from the pieces of her broken self, a more mature woman who better understood life's warmth. She truly rose from the ashes and lived toward the light.