In Dongshan County, Fujian Province, southern China, April 2018, Luo Zhi Sophie Zhang, a sharp and ambitious lawyer on a business trip, attends an exhibition honoring the late Japanese anime director Takahata Isao and discovers an old diary she wrote in her teens about a secret crush on Sheng Huainan Xin Yunlai. The diary, once lost in high school, seems to hold a tender and unspoken chapter of her life, and she asks to reclaim it because it details a love that never fully found its voice.
Flashback reveals a childhood thread that shaped many years of longing. In 1998, Luo Zhi was eight years old when her father dies in a factory accident, an event that casts a long shadow over her family. She meets Sheng Huainan, the young son of the factory’s owner, who appears gentle and kind, drawing her in with his quiet presence and humility. Her mother, who continues to press for compensation money, clings to the sense of injustice surrounding the workers’ insurance. The two children form a fragile bond, but Luo Zhi’s mother drags her away whenever Sheng Huainan is near, leaving behind a chalked message on a wall—an echo of Luo Zhi’s favorite film, Only Yesterday—that Sheng Huainan later tries to decipher by leaving his own reply, not knowing who wrote the line.
As years pass, the rivalry and memory intensify. By 2008, Luo Zhi is in her second year at Zhenhua Senior High and stands at the top of her class, yet a brilliant transfer student arrives from a wealthy family: Sheng Huainan. The home front remains tense, with Luo Zhi’s mother still pressing for compensation, while Sheng Huainan’s presence stirs old feelings into fresh currents. The school’s beauty Ye Zhanyan enters the scene and openly pursues Sheng Huainan, complicating Luo Zhi’s emotions further. Amid this social turbulence, Luo Zhi’s best friend Zheng Wenrui Jackie Li publicly declares a crush on Sheng Huainan to give Luo Zhi space to acknowledge her own feelings. The diary Luo Zhi had kept is stolen by Ye Zhanyan, and Luo Zhi learns that Sheng Huainan and Ye Zhanyan become a couple, a development that seals a private heartbreak in the past.
Jumping ahead to 2012, Luo Zhi studies law at a university in Xiamen and unexpectedly crosses paths with Sheng Huainan again. He is involved in a creative, arty project—a historical sci‑fi student film titled Endless Love 末日之恋—directed by the club head Zhang Minrui, with Wu Jiacheng portraying Zhang Ming Rui Wu Jiacheng. This chance reunion rekindles a cautious friendship that slowly edges toward romance, even as both struggle to voice their deeper feelings. Through late-night conversations and shared moments on set, Luo Zhi and Sheng Huainan inch closer, discovering that their connection has endured across time and distance, even as real life’s pressures—careers, families, and the weight of memories—tempt them to retreat into the safety of silence.
As their story unfolds, the ever-present question remains: how can a long-held secret love survive the realities of growing up? The diary’s contents, the old memories, and the fresh moments of connection all intertwine, inviting Luo Zhi to confront the truth about what she truly wants and what she is willing to risk for a future with Sheng Huainan. The film doubles as a meditation on memory, time, and the fragile line between fantasy and responsibility, asking whether the heart can reconcile a past that shaped who they are with the lives they are building today.
This intricate, reflective tale threads through two timelines—childhood and adulthood—causing readers to reflect on the forces that write love into a person’s life and the courage required to confront those feelings when the moment finally arrives. It’s a story about longing that never fully fades, about the stubborn persistence of affection, and about finding a way to tell the truth to the people who matter most, even when it means risking everything.
