[BE story]
At twenty-six, Gu Shitang clutched her torn university admission letter and fled the remote mountains, where sons were valued over daughters.
After two years of hardship, she put down roots in the city and opened a tattoo shop, hiding her many scars behind the cold bite of her tattoo needle.
That midsummer, eighteen-year-old Lin Jinxi, clutching her college entrance exam score of 630, defiantly ran away from the parents who wanted her to give up her dream of working in film and television.
Her white dress was streaked with dust when she stumbled into the little shop. Only after she showed her ID did the frowning Gu Shitang relent and give her a temporary tattoo.
Gu Shitang paid her tuition, while Lin Jinxi helped run the shop. As they spent their days together, their ten-year age gap became the gentlest of foreshadowing, and their feelings quietly grew out of control.
On the day Lin Jinxi graduated at twenty-two, her confession slipped out. Gu Shitang chose silence, however, and left for a foreign country the next day, cutting off all contact.
Two years later, under the spotlights of the entertainment industry, twenty-four-year-old Lin Jinxi had become a rising star. She took a role in a lesbian drama, only to run into Gu Shitang, now thirty-four, who had unexpectedly joined the cast.
The tender passion of their characters spilled over into real life. After filming wrapped, Lin Jinxi's habit of following Gu Shitang around became a secret they both tacitly accepted. When the series aired, the two became overnight sensations and a fan-favorite couple.
When Lin Jinxi finally worked up the courage to confess again, Gu Shitang was trapped by their ten-year age gap and society's judgment. One word of rejection crushed all that passion.
Heartbroken, Lin Jinxi left the spotlight behind and withdrew from the world, spending the rest of her life in a convent beside a Buddha and a burning lamp.
When they met again, Gu Shitang came to the temple to pray and encountered Lin Jinxi, now shaven-headed.
She looked at the distant expression in the eyes of the person before her, and in the end, said nothing.
