Episode Summary
On Chen Luzhou's birthday, Xu Zhi gifts him a model of a house, promising to build a real home with him, which deeply moves him. However, Xu Zhi faces an academic setback when her professor asks her to redo an assignment, criticizing it for lacking "humanistic care." This triggers a nightmare about her critical mother, leaving her unable to cry. She seeks out Chen Luzhou for comfort, revealing a past trauma where people her late mother had helped tried to exploit her family's grief, causing her to suppress her emotions ever since. Chen Luzhou supports her, even as their different emotional responses are highlighted during a movie date.
Spoiler Alert
Be Passionately in Love Episode 19 Recap: A Home for the Heart
The episode picks up with Chen Luzhou’s low-key birthday celebration at a casual outdoor food stall with his friends. Zhu Yangqi gifts him a limited-edition hoodie, questioning if a simple meal is enough for such an occasion.Chen Luzhou, however, insists that it's just a birthday and there's no need for a big fuss. Just then, Xu Zhi arrives, and when Chen Luzhou playfully calls her out for coming empty-handed, she retorts that he was the one who said no gifts were necessary. He then asks her to buy him a basketball. A short while later, she returns with a basketball-shaped keychain, joking that she checked with the shop owner, and this one won't hurt if he throws it at someone.
Later, Xu Zhi leads Chen Luzhou to a quiet spot, sparking his curiosity about a potential surprise gift. What she presents him with is far more meaningful than he could have imagined: a handcrafted model of a house.She tells him that while the nineteen-year-old Chen Luzhou has her by his side, the six-year-old version of him never had a proper home.With this gift, she offers a promise: if he is willing, they can build a home of their own together in Qingyi. Overwhelmed with emotion, Chen Luzhou is moved to tears.
As they prepare to cut the cake, Xu Zhi’s father calls to ask if she has met anyone special recently. She quickly denies it, even claiming she and Chen Luzhou haven't been in touch for a long time. Chen Luzhou, who overhears the conversation, teases her afterward for how effortlessly she lies now. She quips back that it's a skill she's always possessed, and the two share a lighthearted, playful moment.
The mood shifts back at university. During a class, Xu Zhi’s friend Cai Yingying struggles through a news-reading presentation, much to the teacher's disappointment. Afterward, the professor announces that three students need to redo their latest assignment, and Xu Zhi is one of them.She is understandably dejected, especially since her roommates, whom she had personally tutored, all passed.Too upset to eat, she heads to the library, but Chen Luzhou finds her and gently insists that she needs to eat to have the strength to tackle her work.
Seeking clarity, Xu Zhi speaks with her professor. He explains that her work is actually impressive for a freshman, and because of that, he holds her to a higher standard.The assignment was to design a public square for an urban village, and he felt her design, while technically sound, lacked a crucial element of humanistic care.
That night, while working on the revisions, Xu Zhi falls asleep at her desk and has a painful nightmare. She dreams of her mother, who cruelly dismisses her work as terrible and tells her to give up if she can't do it right.When dream-Xu Zhi asks why her mother must be so harsh, her mother challenges her to cry if she feels wronged, but she finds herself unable to shed a tear.Waking in distress, Xu Zhi immediately messages Chen Luzhou, telling him she’s downstairs from his dorm. She confesses she had a nightmare and can't cry, asking for his help.
Chen Luzhou is in the middle of a heated discussion with his friends, including Li Ke, about their mathematical modeling competition when he gets her message. Without hesitation, he leaves his team to go to her, much to their bewilderment. He listens as she recounts the nightmare, and he suggests that she has been suppressing her feelings for so long that her ability to perceive and express her own emotions has weakened.
This prompts Xu Zhi to open up about a deep-seated trauma. She reveals that after her mother passed away, people her mother had financially supported came to their home. They held a child and claimed that without her mother, their project was failing and they couldn't pay their staff, implying it was now Xu Zhi's family's responsibility to care for the child.She explains that these were the very people her mother had helped, and the experience taught her to see emotions as the most useless thing in the world.
To lift her spirits, Chen Luzhou takes her to a movie. During the film, he finds himself crying at a moving scene. In a moment that perfectly illustrates their emotional disconnect, Xu Zhi comforts him by telling him not to cry, reminding him that it’s all fake.
