The Study Room in the Woods

1.

During the year Lin Ting Tian retook her exams, she often studied along with a companion-style livestream called The Study Room in the Woods.

On camera, the hands holding a textbook were long, pale, and finely knuckled. When he read aloud, his voice was gentle and tender, low and resonant.

His voice pulled her out of the mire of losing her dreams after a car accident, giving her comfort and strength.

He kept her company through several years of her lowest point, and became a young girl's secret feelings, buried deep in her heart.

Lin Ting Tian thought that if she ever got the chance, she would meet him and thank him in person.

But fate had other plans. Her hearing grew worse and worse, until she could no longer recognize his voice or make out what people were saying.

On a night at the amusement park, fireworks blossomed overhead. A cool hand covered her ears, but her cheeks gradually grew warm, and her heart pounded like a drum.

Their eyes met. She asked if he was the person she was looking for, watching his lips to try to make out his reply. But somehow, as if under a spell, she rose onto her toes and lightly pressed her lips to his, cutting off his words.

She ran after the kiss, and they parted for two years.

2.

When they met again after she returned to the country, Lin Ting Tian had become a top designer of collectible toys, running her own independent IP brand.

Back then, she had refused to face the fact that she was hard of hearing and turned down treatment. Later, she used her pen as a blade, creating the image of a girl wearing headphones and setting out alone into the collectible toy world.

Even when her company faced a takeover crisis, Lin Ting Tian showed no sign of backing down in front of the shareholders, arguing her case against them all.

Even trapped in a pitch-black storeroom, with Wen Yan approaching step by step and cornering her against the wall, her gaze remained clear and unflinching.

"Lin Ting Tian." His eyes reddened. "You clearly..."

The next second, her lips brushed his, cool and fleeting, but then she was pulled back with greater force.

This time, Wen Yan didn't let go.

3.

At sixteen, Wen Yan was rebellious, willful, and defiant, but one day he suddenly changed and started studying. He especially loved Chinese class.

He started a livestream called The Study Room in the Woods, all because one afternoon on the tree-lined path to the convenience store, he saw a girl wearing headphones and practicing her spoken English. She paced back and forth, then bounced around, like a little deer in the woods.

A little deer should be free and carefree.

He thought he would protect that innocence, whether she liked clouds, the wind, or big trees.

Until much later, the little deer grew beautiful plum blossoms and eagerly showed them to him, telling him that the big tree was what she had always liked.

- At first, the male lead thinks the female lead likes someone else, and gets the bitter, unrequited-love storyline.

- They have mutual crushes, and the male lead falls first.

- They save each other, and for years, without realizing it, they become each other's light.

Theme: Be yourself.