Daybreak at Long Last

One diary, two selves. A fateful exchange of souls.

In her grandmother's old desk, Gu Panqing discovers a diary that doesn't belong to her. The handwriting is unfamiliar, yet her own name is written on the title page.

Even more chillingly, the diary recounts a childhood and adolescence eerily like her own: the same name and appearance, the same bullying at school, and even the same kindhearted boy named Xiang Chen.

But beginning with the summer they turned twelve, their lives split toward opposite poles of light and darkness. One remains the beloved jewel of her parents, sunny, confident, and secure in herself. The other becomes the overlooked eldest daughter of her family, struggling through the mire beneath the shackles of being “mature,” and pushing away every chance to love or be loved.

As writing becomes a bridge, the two Gu Panqings begin speaking across time and space. One desperately tries to use her own light to illuminate the other's abyss; the other, in despair, longs to steal a brief moment of warmth.

Until, on a stormy night, the diary reveals a plea of utter despair. She falls asleep, and wakes to find the world turned upside down. She has become “her.”

Only after experiencing firsthand the other self's countless wounds does she realize: between her and suffering, there was only the distance of a diary. When she returns, only one final sentence remains on the page: “Thank you. The sunshine there was so warm.”

After that, the diary falls silent forever. Was the “Gu Panqing” who trudged through wind and rain finally saved by a faint glimmer of light, or did she sink into an even colder deep, still yearning for the light?