A Dream Left Behind by the Sunflower Sea: A Love Too Late to Regret

In 2021, fallen camphor leaves at A University paved the way for Lin Yifan and Susu's first meeting. After an accidental collision, watercolor paint spilled into a rainbow. He fell into her clear eyes and fell in love at first sight. Staged encounters, stolen glances in the library, cheers from the sidelines of the court: their youthful affection quietly took root. During the National Day holiday, he confessed his feelings among a sea of sunflowers. The golden blooms witnessed the beginning of their love, returned in full. They turned ordinary days into poetry. He remembered that she didn't eat cilantro and held an umbrella over her outside the art studio on rainy days. She went for walks with him when he was down and stayed up late preparing a birthday surprise. As the seasons turned, they read together beneath the cherry blossoms and watched the stars on summer nights. Their promise to buy a house by the sea and grow sunflowers there was their warmest hope for the future. After graduation, reality shattered their innocence. Lin Yifan climbed the corporate ladder, and business dinners and ambition swallowed his ideals. His gentle nature gave way to irritability and criticism. Susu repeatedly failed her teaching exams, yet continued to wait for him in silence. On his birthday, she brought him the joyful news that she was pregnant and a plate of sweet-and-sour ribs she'd made herself, only to find him walking intimately with Song Peier. Her love was met with indifference as he turned away. During an argument in the early hours of the morning, he tore up her pregnancy test and angrily accused her of having "ulterior motives," crushing Susu's sincere love. She left in the middle of the night with their photo in the sunflower field and vanished without a trace. Lin Yifan chased after wealth and status, growing exhausted from trying to please Song Peier. After setbacks at work and a rejected marriage proposal, he finally came to his senses and realized he had lost the most precious light in his life. After that, he quit his job and searched across mountains and seas, but never found her. He planted sunflowers all along the coast and spent his days alone with her photograph, eventually dying in regret. After Susu was rescued from the sea, she settled in a coastal town and opened Sunflower Flower Shop, where she raised their daughter, Nianfan, on her own and found a new beginning. When she heard of his death, tears fell onto the worn photograph as she traced it with her fingers, keeping her longing buried deep inside. A first meeting and a moment of commitment had been led astray by desire, becoming a regret that could never be made right in either of their lives.