Tears Glimmering in the Dark

Lin Wanyao first meets Jiang Lin at a karaoke bar, where she mistakes him for a male model who stepped in to help someone and gets a drink thrown on her. The second time is at an underground boxing ring. Under the lights, he looks at her, his body drenched in sweat, and they fall for each other at the same time.

He doesn't know that she comes from a family that favors boys over girls, with a cruel stepmother and a stepfather who covets her. Forced into blind dates, she lives like a puppet on strings. She doesn't know that his parents divorced when he was fifteen, and that after his mother sold her blood to put him through college, she fell ill. To save her, he put on boxing gloves.

They secretly meet a few times. Then everything falls apart. Her former blind date joins forces with her family to cause a scene at the Jiang home, and Jiang Lin's mother dies after an argument. Lin Wanyao gives herself to him, then signs up for a medical team fighting epidemics in Africa and leaves for three years. Having lost both his mother and her, he gets revenge on her former blind date and then resolutely joins the military.

Five years later, they meet again before the ruins of an earthquake. He pursues her; she runs. She has always believed she was responsible for his mother's death. Then her stepbrother fails to get a recommendation from her and stabs her in the women's restroom. Jiang Lin shields her from the second blow with his chest, leaving him at death's door.

His father appears: the man who was thrown into a lake by his enemies all those years ago and rescued by Lin Wanyao. He gives her two letters written before death. They say, "It wasn't her fault."

At last, she stops running.

Trouble erupts again at their wedding. Jiang Lin is forced to leave the military and taken back to Taiwan by his father. By the time Lin Wanyao discovers she is pregnant, he is already gone. Four years later, she crosses the sea with their two children to find him, but their daughter is kidnapped. She charges into the tiger's den alone and emerges covered in wounds. He goes alone to rescue their son. Together, they turn the tables.

From then on, the family of four never separates again.

Theme: 1. The wounds inflicted by one's family of origin can heal, but not by forgetting. They heal by becoming your own family. 2. Love is not dependence. It means choosing to stand side by side even after each of you has become strong on your own battlefield. 3. Guilt is more frightening than hatred, but love lasts longer than guilt. 4. A woman's courage comes from not wanting anyone else to suffer as she did. 5. Behind a soldier's identity is an ordinary person's choice to put their life on the line.