This is a story about “redemption gone awry.”
During the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, seven-year-old Shen Shi was trapped beneath the rubble after saving his classmate, Lin Huisheng. The accident damaged his spinal cord, leaving him bound to a wheelchair for life. Lin Huisheng survived, but overwhelmed by guilt, she chose to “forget.” Her family moved away with her, she changed her name, and she began a new life.
Sixteen years later, twenty-three-year-old Shen Shi is an obscure cultural relic restorer. Taciturn and shut away in his studio, he refuses all social contact. Lin Huisheng has become a somewhat well-known documentary filmmaker. While working on a series about “time and memory,” she is assigned to follow a cultural relic restorer.
Neither knows the other’s true identity. Shen Shi recognizes her but says nothing. Lin Huisheng senses something familiar about the restorer, but no matter how hard she tries, she cannot remember what it is.
Over the three months she follows him, the two gradually grow closer. Shen Shi thinks he can pretend that what happened never happened, pretend he is just an ordinary restorer, and pretend he does not love her. But while sorting through old belongings one day, Lin Huisheng finds an old newspaper clipping about the earthquake. In the photo, a little girl covered in blood is being carried by a firefighter. The headline reads, “Under the rubble, a boy shielded his classmate with his own body.”
The little girl in the photo is her.
