Blurb:
Most people are a bad match according to their birth charts, but Tong Yan and Chai Heng are a nine-character mismatch: their eight birth-chart characters, plus their names.
Tong Yan's name has fire in it, while Chai Heng's surname contains wood. They were at odds from the moment they were born.
And they really did get along badly. It all started with a dispute over lacquerwork: the Tong family's secret technique had been stolen by the Chai family.
At eight years old, Tong Yan was already sending letters by carrier pigeon, using huge, clumsy characters to call Chai Heng a thief.
At first, Chai Heng couldn't be bothered to respond. Later, he realized that backing down would only leave him more aggrieved, so he took up his brush and sent a reply.
Seven days later, the pigeon was nowhere to be found. Tong Yan received a letter and opened it to find a recipe for pigeon soup. At the end was a review: "It was delicious. Thanks for the meal."
Tong Yan was so furious that he lost a baby tooth. He painted a little wooden figure of Chai Heng with a thick coat of lacquer and whittled away at it every day.
As the years passed, Chai Heng lived up to Tong Yan's carving dreams and became Fengzhou's champion pigeon racer, while Tong Yan reached the pinnacle of his craft and became the top figure in relief carving.
Back then, no one could have imagined that these two would go from butting heads at every turn to becoming inseparable.
A petty lacquer artisan bottom x a "gentle and easygoing" pattern designer top
Theme: The secret to success is perseverance. That goes for craftsmanship and for how you conduct yourself, too.
