Zhang He, a former film and TV editor, is raising his four-year-old daughter, Xiaokui, on his own, along with a white cat named Nian Gao. He runs the “Timebloom Flower Studio,” a small workshop that also offers DIY balcony gardening. In this city, where people are obsessed with virtual socializing, filters, and algorithms, real-life connections have withered. His flower shop is struggling, and dating platforms keep giving him bad reviews for “having no steady job” and “raising a kid and a cat.” Then one day, a time-lapse video he casually filmed of tomatoes ripening on his balcony is stolen and goes viral with a fake persona attached. An influencer review team shows up, hoping to package him as a “healing heartthrob” in exchange for taking over his account and making staged content. Meanwhile, his former colleague Zhou Rui tries to rope him into faking engagement, the mysterious florist Lin Wantang keeps appearing, and his old illness begins to return. When Xiaokui asks, “Daddy, why doesn’t anyone smile?” and Nian Gao suddenly bristles at the camera in warning, Zhang He realizes that no amount of online attention can define what is real. He sets up his own camera and films his daughter’s clumsy watering, the cat stealing succulents, and the market auntie giving him an extra handful of scallions. Just as his videos begin to turn public opinion around, the real trouble is only beginning: someone wants to buy his flower studio, someone wants to take Xiaokui’s custody, and the person who most wants to get close to him may be hiding the biggest secret of all.
