Liu Wan is twenty-eight years old and can sense changes in force of 0.1 Grams with both hands. The silk thread ran through her fingertips, and the twist, fluffiness, and gloss were all docile. She is a well-known adjuster in the industry. When the thread comes out of her hand, the sewing machine will not skip stitches, thread, or lint. The price is that her life is like those lines - tight, smooth, without any surprises.
On the day Chen Zeming parachuted into the workshop, heavy rain soaked the entire city in water. He sat down across the conference table, with water stains on his suit shoulders. The first thing he said was: Liu Wan, the thread you made is too soft. On a rainy day when he was eighteen years old, he sat on the steps of the alley all afternoon, waiting for her to come out. She didn't come out. None of them escaped the rain, but each of them had been exposed to it for a different decade.
Now he was cutting off the handmade thread she had guarded for five years. And she was asked to spend three months to create a thread that was both fluffy and soft, and could be used on a high-speed sewing machine without wrinkles. Everyone in this industry knew that this was equivalent to asking the water to go up. What's worse is that every time she fails, she feels like she's killing something with her own hands.
Until one day, she found an old picture on his computer screen. It was a silk scarf design she entered anonymously as a girl. She had long forgotten that picture, but he kept it for twelve years.
She wanted to ask him why. But first I asked myself: What if I went out back then?
