Five years ago, their incompatible academic paths led to an amicable breakup. One went overseas, while the other stayed behind to work on low-temperature research at home. With mountains and seas between them, they lost touch, believing they would never meet again.
Five years later, Xie Yao returns to China for a joint training program, bringing a mature quantum statistical model with her. At the arrangement of Academician Zhou, Shen Jian is assigned to meet her at the airport and becomes her partner for the next two years of working side by side.
They catch sight of each other across the crowds at the airport. She recognizes her old flame at once, hides every trace of familiarity, and pretends not to know him. He has no idea until he sees the name "Xie Yao" on the list and realizes that the stranger who just passed him by is the person he has kept buried in his heart for five years.
In public, they are fellow researchers who observe all the proper boundaries; in private, they hide regrets left unspoken. They work through calculations together in the lab late at night, take detours to avoid each other on the ginkgo-lined path, and deliberately walk in different directions on rainy nights. Their distance grows layer by layer.
One office, two adjacent desks, one theory, and a full set of low-temperature experimental data collected over many years.
Fate is subtle and ironic. The academic divide that forced them apart in the past now happens to fill in each other's gaps. Across the country, they are the research partners most suited to one another.
They were once forced to choose between their ideals and their love. Now, theory and experiment are both indispensable, yet they fear that being together day after day will only lead to another separation.
After countless all-night experiments, they lay out the calculation drafts and experimental notes they have kept for five years, and finally dare to face the feelings hidden in those pages, feelings that crossed mountains and seas.
It turns out that the academic divide that once held them back has become the reason they can stand side by side for the long haul.
Her pages hold five years of steadfast solitude; she journeys from afar to a reunion.
Theme: Two paths that once diverged finally complement and converge. The right person will be waiting for you in the future you pursue.
