Tao Ran is twenty-eight years old. He is the kind of garden designer who works on drawings until three in the morning and can still argue with the construction company the next day. The garden she designed won an award, but the award-winning design was bulldozed by the owner to build a parking lot. On the day she received the new project, she had just sat in the abandoned garden all afternoon when her assistant called and said that the person in charge of the construction party had arrived, named Gu.
Of all the people named Gu she knew, only one made her squat in the library stairwell and cry for two hours on her graduation day. She had a crush on Gu Shen, a senior in the university's Department of Architecture, for four years. She stuffed a confession note into his graduation project model and then disappeared. To be precise, her father suddenly became seriously ill. She returned to her hometown, and someone told her: Gu Shen said you were too naive.
When we met again six years later, he didn't mention the note or the past. He only opened the contract and said, "Ceramic designer, there is something wrong with your drainage plan." His tone was businesslike, but there was a children's sticker on the thermos cup at hand. She didn't ask, and he explained.
As the project progresses, old drawings, intercepted letters, tampered exchange student notices - lies one after another come to light. It turns out that what separates them is not only time, but also other people's calculations. What's even more difficult is that Party A has to tear down and rebuild, investors need to change, and competitors can steal the plan. He blocked the gun for her, and she turned down a promotion for him.
Every crossroad between career and emotion is like those cracks in the old garden - I thought they were filled in, but with a little pry, there are coins and roots hidden underneath.
