Three years ago, top-tier star Gu Yeheng told Shi Ran to her face, “I never loved you.”
Three years later, wearing a mask and a cap, he books an appointment at her clinic.
“Full name.”
“Gu Yeheng.”
“Occupation.”
“Top-tier star.”
Shi Ran adjusts her black-rimmed glasses and writes in the medical record, her hand perfectly steady. On her left wrist, a black hair tie from a two-yuan shop has faded to gray. She's worn it for three whole years.
His gaze falls on it. “That hair tie... is it the one I lost?”
She doesn't answer.
A therapist and her top-tier-star ex-boyfriend: their professional relationship is the only line they must not cross. Shi Ran designs a treatment plan for Gu Yeheng called “desensitization training”: repeat the breakup lines, revisit places tied to his memories, write a letter he'll never send. Each session cuts open his old wounds, while cutting into her a little deeper, too.
Until one day, a voice recorder hits the floor, accidentally pressing play. Shi Ran's voice from three years ago rings through the hallway:
“Gu Yeheng, I like you.”
The truth explodes into the open. He hadn't fallen out of love with her when they broke up. His manager had threatened her future to force him to let her go.
But now that the misunderstanding is cleared up, does that mean the hurt is gone?
He says, “This time, I won't make the wrong choice again.”
She takes off the hair tie and hands it to him. “This was yours from the start. Here, take it back. But what about me... do you still want me?”
