(Rugged, spirited red-haired truck driver x older, insecure mixed-race CEO)
Red hair, cigarettes, and a heavy truck. When Xu Youning stands there, even thugs and hooligans know to give her a wide berth.
But beneath that "don't mess with me" exterior, her life has long since fallen to pieces.
Her parents died young. Her grandfather was blinded in a mine explosion. Her unscrupulous boss ran off.
She tore up her admission letter, washed dishes, served food, and tightened screws, making herself as tough as iron.
The night her grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, she crouched on the roof with a cigarette between her teeth, flipped the heavens the middle finger, and kept fighting.
She worked the wok by day and drove for Didi at night, then gritted her teeth and got behind the wheel of a heavy truck.
With eighteen wheels rolling, she was crazier than any man.
In a year of disaster, while others fled, she risked her life to deliver goods for a benefactor, saving his company.
That was how she was recommended to Ning Chuan, a Chinese-Russian CEO, as his private chef.
At their first meeting, Ning Chuan looked utterly displeased. Then he took one bite of her cooking and was completely won over.
The little animals she sketched were full of life, and she could pick up anything with just a hint of instruction.
Yet she lowered her head and said, "Someone like me doesn't deserve to learn that."
At that moment, Ning Chuan felt ashamed of himself for the first time.
So what if he was a few years older than her? So what if he had money? When she was shouldering the burden of an entire family, he was still living a carefree life beneath his father's protection.
So he became her biggest supporter.
He paid for her art studies, sent her to Harvard, and helped her become a leading designer.
When she fell in love, he kept his renewed stomach problems to himself, even as the pain tormented him. When she achieved success, he let her go and accompanied her to the frontier to pursue her dreams.
From truck driver to CEO, and then to wildlife artist.
Xu Youning raced ahead through life, while the man who was cold on the outside but warm within always stood behind her.
"I came from the dust, yet I was lucky enough to have you lift me toward the stars."
Theme: Love and hate
