The Flightless Bird and the Phoenix Tree

Eighteen-year-old Jiang Beiming only wants to find herself a guardian. But her guardian tells her to learn to love herself.

A girl and a young tattoo artist find healing and support in each other.

Synopsis:

Gu Xiaozheng is an unusually young tattoo artist, just twenty years old. He tattoos other people, but his own skin is completely clean.

His fair, cool, and handsome look draws plenty of customers, and there's no client he can't tattoo.

Then, one day, as rain poured down, someone pounded hard on the locked iron door of his tattoo shop.

When he opened it, a slender, frail girl stood outside. Her school uniform was soaked through, her long hair clung to her clothes, and she held a crumpled 300 yuan note in her hand.

“Give me a tattoo. If I don't have enough, I'll save up more,” the girl said, her face bloodless, her eyes carrying a cold, world-weary air.

“I don't serve minors. Get lost.” Gu Xiaozheng paid her no mind, assuming she was just some rebellious girl from the high school next door who wanted a tattoo to look grown-up.

The next day, he put the “No minors” sign back outside his shop. That should keep high schoolers from coming in and getting yelled at, right?

But a few days later, he found the girl at another tattoo artist's station. He hauled her down by the arm and kicked her into his own shop.

“Why are you getting a tattoo when you're underage? Don't you want to take the college entrance exam? Don't you want to sit for the civil service exam?”

It was the first time he'd ever yelled at a girl.

But despite her frail appearance, the girl was even calmer than he was. “If I get a tattoo, no one will dare bully me. Then I can take the college entrance exam.”

Gu Xiaozheng froze.

“What's your name?” he asked again.

The girl lifted her thin eyelids. Her voice was like a sharp blade of snow, flat and emotionless. “Jiang Beiming.”

“I asked for the name of the person bullying you, not your name!” Gu Xiaozheng hurled the black baseball cap off his head. This girl was just...

He was at a loss.

Note:

* Jiang Beiming is already an adult by the time the two fall in love.

Theme: Love yourself before loving someone else