“I’m not bothering you, Professor Shen. I’m using my own way to return the light you once gave me.”
Shen Mochen, the youngest associate professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, is the untouchable “flower on a high peak” in the eyes of students and faculty alike. Stern, aloof, and ascetic, he wears a bracelet of agarwood beads on his wrist to shut out all the noise and desire around him. Then he meets Su Nuan, a senior who dares to sketch him as her “model” in the hallway on her very first day of classes.
Everyone thinks the brazen girl will soon realize she’s out of her depth and give up.
Instead, after class, Su Nuan walks straight into his office with her sketchbook and slaps a ticket stub from his first exhibition four years ago onto his desk.
“Professor Shen, I’ve been watching you since four years ago.”
“You’re my desire, the source of all my inspiration, the light I chase.”
For the first time, a crack appears in the walls around Shen Mochen’s heart. He tries to push her away with coldness, but her passionate talent and utter sincerity keep breaking into his closed-off world. He makes an exception and invites her to join a major cultural relic restoration project. She leaves a warm light on for him in the studio late at night. Beneath the stars, they talk about art and redemption…
But when rumors begin to spread like creeping vines, an anonymous letter of complaint reaches the faculty ethics committee, and the shadows of the past descend once more, Shen Mochen chooses the most decisive way to protect her: he submits his resignation and bears everything alone.
Just as he is about to turn and leave, Su Nuan grabs his hand, while behind her stands a powerful artistic family that has rushed to her defense.
“This time, let me protect you.”
