The First River

Time is a river that cannot flow backward, yet we all want to fish out the moonlight from its source.

Lin Chuyan, a "regret curator," is skilled at restoring old photographs and even better at helping clients rediscover the warmth of their "firsts." He believes that making up for what was missing at the beginning can restore life to perfection. His father's death leaves him with a diary about his first love and a bizarre photograph. The unfamiliar woman standing beside his father looks exactly like the first love he can never forget.

The discovery tears apart the world he has always known. Seeking answers, he sets out to follow in his father's footsteps, only to find that the cherished "firsts" of both generations are riddled with carefully disguised lies and helpless regrets. Meanwhile, the people around him are each trapped on their own isolated islands of the past: Su Nianqing, who refuses to start again because of the pain of her first love, and Chen Mo, who keeps failing despite his obsession with repeating the formula behind his first success...

What are we so unwilling to let go of: that one-of-a-kind "first," or the version of ourselves that once gave everything without holding back?

Lin Chuyan eventually understands that true healing does not mean making everything flow backward to the beginning. It means learning to accept everything "unfinished" and "imperfect" amid the rush of time, then, with the river's blessing, bravely flowing toward a wider horizon.

This is a story about memory and letting go. It reminds us that life's beauty lies not in preserving the first wave, but in embracing the whole river.