Two heroines
17-year-old Lin Wei walked into the Su Mansion wearing ill-fitting high heels, like a wild grass that strayed into the courtyard, bringing with it the cramped and unpolished freshness of a nouveau riche family. 25-Year-old Shen Zhiyi is a painter living here. Her moon-white cheongsam is wrapped in the coldness of returning from studying abroad, and the smell of turpentine hides her alienation from the world. They first met in the evening breeze on the terrace, and a handkerchief with the smell of cedar became the first glimmer of light across the gap.
Lin Wei approached in the name of studying painting, watching Shen Zhiyi chasing light and shadow on the canvas, listening to her talk about the artists on the streets of Paris, and touching each other's warmth in the dim light of the second-hand bookstore. Shen Zhiyi also saw the long-lost purity in Lin Wei, the slight numbness when her fingertips touched when she held the pen, and the hot milk handed to her on a rainy night, all in the intertwining of turpentine and fireworks, quietly creating hidden ripples.
But class barriers have never disappeared: Lin Wei doesn't understand Shen Zhiyi's insistence on "respectability", and Shen Zhiyi can't fully understand the existential anxiety Lin Wei faces. The Su family's contempt, the Zhao family's covetousness, and the Lin family's shaky business are like an invisible net, entangling their tentative steps. The brush strokes in the studio become more and more stable, and the distance between the two hearts suddenly becomes far and near. Those unspoken concerns are hidden in the corners of the sketchbook and among the petals of daisies, trembling gently in the wind of reality.
