A delicate flower from a refugee camp, kept by a wealthy family x A young scion of a Hong Kong tycoon and award-winning actor
Hong Kong entertainment industry | Older man-younger woman | Secret crush | Working hard to win the heart of an unattainable beauty
The charity ambassador of Yangming Properties, a delicate flower who emerged from a refugee camp. A parasite exploiting Hong Kong people's sympathy, a publicity-seeking celebrity with no acting skills.
At twenty, Chen Qingluan made her official debut in Hong Kong, carrying countless negative labels.
Five years earlier, she had fled to Hong Kong on a refugee boat. A photograph that brought all of Hong Kong to tears had earned her a place in the home of her aunt, who had married a real-estate tycoon.
Endure. Escape.
In the darkness, she swallowed her bitterness time and again, because she knew she had yet to reach the person who seemed impossibly far away.
Bai Zhiyan.
*
Saigon fell, and the city was engulfed in war. At fifteen, Chen Qingluan boarded a refugee boat bound for Hong Kong. The Chen family had commanded commercial trade across both sides of the strait and beyond, but after the Saigon seawall was blockaded, they were trapped in a country that had already changed hands.
Hong Kong, 1995. That long, scorching summer. As Chen Qingluan endured the stench of rotting food in the refugee camp, thinking she would be trapped beneath the blazing sun for the rest of her life, a pure white snow began to fall in her world.
Cameras suddenly surrounded her. Amid the mechanical clicking of shutters, she looked up and met his clear, unreadable eyes. From then on, all she could hear was her own heartbeat.
“If you're hungry, would you like a baguette?” Those were Bai Zhiyan's first words to Chen Qingluan.
Chen Qingluan opened her mouth but couldn't say a word. All she could think of was the home that had burned to the ground, and the walls of her room covered in his posters.
The young man wore a traditional robe, dressed for a period drama. His long black hair was tied behind his head, and his skin was as white as snow.
His fans called him Snow White.
Born into a powerful Hong Kong family, he'd enjoyed nothing but success since his debut. His first film won him the Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer. In the fame and fortune of the entertainment world, his personality remained as cool and unaccommodating as snow. An offhand remark in an interview would invariably land him on the front page the next day, sometimes criticized for arrogance, sometimes mocked for coasting on his wealthy family.
But he never cared or responded. People said he was above the mundane world, as aloof and cold as snow.
Yet he had come to the refugee camp with a disaster relief team to distribute supplies.
When Chen Qingluan didn't answer, he handed her a baguette from his basket as she sat on the ground.
The scene was captured in that moment: a disheveled girl with dirt on her face looked up at him in a daze. Their hands held the baguette, one above the other. The sunlight lit his back before spilling over her face, making her clear eyes look like a spring of water in the dirt.
“I-I am hungry. I'm very hungry. Thank you, Snow White.”
For the first time, Bai Zhiyan frowned slightly and said to her, “Don't be afraid.”
I'm here.
The photograph appeared on the front pages of major newspapers the next morning and was repeatedly shown during prime-time news broadcasts across the region.
No one knew why Bai Zhiyan had risked public criticism to visit the refugee camp and provide disaster relief.
But Chen Qingluan knew that from that day on, the generous snowfall finally soothed the burns left by the tropical summer she had fled.
*
A fire during renovations reduced several of Yangming Group's most famous buildings to a living hell.
The group's reputation plummeted. This was no longer a time to burnish its name through charity work. Her uncle, who had controlled her for years, was too busy dealing with the fallout, and Chen Qingluan finally found the chance to audition for Bai Zhiyan's film.
Five years had passed. Bai Zhiyan was now twenty-seven and had won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor. During those five years, Chen Qingluan had tried countless times to get into his field of vision, but each time, his gaze had passed over her without a trace of feeling.
Until, after the audition, she suddenly crossed the line and tugged at his tie, pulling the much taller man down to meet her eyes.
She watched Bai Zhiyan gaze at her, his lashes trembling. She couldn't tell if he was angry or intrigued. A current of tension flowed between them.
“You've grown up,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Little girl.”
In an instant, thunder and lightning filled her world.
So he had remembered her all along.
Theme: The one who takes the initiative is the first to appreciate the world
