Yi Ran has reached the point where blind dates no longer feel exciting, they feel scheduled. As an elementary school language teacher, her days are filled with lesson plans, energetic children, and friends who insist they know exactly what kind of husband she needs. She smiles, goes along with it, then heads home wondering why finding the right person seems far more difficult than everyone claims.
She certainly isn’t expecting the answer to appear inside an exclusive health club.
An awkward misunderstanding introduces her to Gu Tingchuan, a man whose reputation arrived long before he did. In the film industry, his name carries enough weight that actors compete for a chance to work with him. The media calls him a genius, others simply call him impossible to approach. He rarely explains himself, avoids unnecessary attention, and seems perfectly content keeping the rest of the world at arm’s length.
For Yi Ran, the encounter is memorable for all the wrong reasons. She assumes she’ll never see him again, which would have made life much less complicated.
Instead, a film event brings them together again, and not long afterward she discovers that one of the children in her class shares an unexpected connection with the famous director. Looking after the boy gradually becomes the reason their paths keep crossing, though neither of them is particularly eager to admit that those meetings have stopped feeling like coincidences.
The child, Gu Tai, quietly becomes the bridge between two people who would otherwise have remained strangers. Yi Ran treats him the same way she treats every student, with patience, encouragement, and the occasional scolding when he deserves it. Gu Tingchuan notices those small moments far more than grand gestures, and the carefully constructed image he has of ordinary life begins to shift in ways he never anticipated.
The novel spends just as much time on everyday conversations as it does romance. Family, careers, friendships, and the little misunderstandings that naturally grow between two very different personalities all shape the relationship. Even the entertainment industry stays mostly in the background, serving as part of Gu Tingchuan’s life rather than becoming the entire story.
Readers already know from the beginning that this reserved director eventually gets married, the real question isn’t who, but how. Watching two people from completely different worlds slowly lower their guard, stumble through awkward moments, and discover comfort in each other’s company is what gives the story its charm. It isn’t a whirlwind romance, it feels more like two ordinary lives quietly finding the same destination.
