When he was eight years old, someone handed him a candy.
That was the first time he knew what it felt like to be "cared about."
It was also the first time that he discovered that the way he looked at that person seemed different from others.
From that day on, Lin Xiaochuan began to hide. Hide the heartbeat, hide the eyes, hide those undeserved likes. Hiding as a "normal" boy - silent, sensible, not causing trouble to anyone. He hid it until everyone praised him for being worry-free, and hid it until he himself forgot what he really looked like.
He had a crush on the sunny and cheerful Shen Yuzhou, and deeply loved the quiet and tenacious Bai Yu. Every time his heart beat, he chose to retreat, remain silent, and miss it. After his confession was rejected, he fled to a foreign country and was almost consumed by depression.
It wasn't until one day when he saw a same-sex couple holding hands openly on the street in a foreign country that he realized for the first time that he was not a monster.
Teaching children in mountainous areas healed his frozen heart with pure dependence. When he was twenty-seven, he met Jiang Yu, a person who was like Nuanyang.
He began to try not to hide anymore.
The story spans twenty-four years, from the damp old alleys of a southern town to an ancient campus in a foreign country. This is a long journey about shame, disguise, collapse and redemption, and it is also the process in which a "habitual victim" finally learns to admit love, express love, and live for himself.
Before I hid myself, I wasn't like this.
Now, I don't want to hide anymore.
Concept: Lin Xiaochuan, the tall, silent, and extremely tolerant male protagonist, grew up in a repressed environment and fell into long-term shame and self-denial due to his sexual awakening. From childhood dependence, teenage crush, college obsession, collapse while studying abroad, and healing through volunteer education, to meeting the warm Jiang Yu as an adult, he finally learned to admit himself, express love, reconcile with himself and the world, and complete a psychological redemption that lasted more than 20 years.