When poor girl Su Wan accidentally destroyed the treasured keepsake of Lu Tingzhou’s first love, fate began grinding her dignity to dust. To save her mother, she signed herself away and became the lowliest of servants. Yet on countless nights, he would grip her chin and say, “You’re not even worthy of imitating her shadow.” He made her wear his first love’s dresses and imitate her smile, then tossed a cheap ring in front of her on the eve of his engagement. It was the price of her life, traded for a peaceful future for her mother.
Then a diagnosis of stage-two stomach cancer cut through every disguise like a rusty knife. Only when she slapped the IOU down in front of him did Lu Tingzhou realize that the girl whose dignity he had crushed had endured countless tortures, washing cars with icy water and kneeling to scrub floors late into the night, until her love had become a terminal illness. When he frantically called off the engagement and searched the entire city for her, all he found in a shabby rental was a yellowed diary. Inside, she had written: “He tucked me in today. Does that mean… he likes me a little?”
There was no reunion in the end. As Su Wan’s hand, pointing out the window at the setting sun, fell limp, Lu Tingzhou finally understood that his belated devotion was worth less than dust. From then on, he kept watch over the empty villa, clutching the old dress she had worn, and let his memories consume him in his bone-deep remorse. The greatest pain, it turned out, was not being unable to have someone. It was finally learning how to love when that person had vanished forever into the grave you had built with your own hands.
