Episode Summary
Tang Yixun grows jealous of Shen Xiaojun after realizing his future son has the last name "Shen," and he brings the letterbox home to demand answers. A conversation with Shen Dashan makes Ye Haitang realize her mother didn't abandon her; her father likely framed her for stealing money. In the future, an elderly Tang Yixun collapses at the cemetery and has a final vision of dancing with a young Ye Haitang in the snow.
Spoiler Alert
The Past - Tang Yixun's Jealousy
A Gift and a Suspicion
Tang Yixun finally shows up after Ye Haitang waits for him all night. He sees the injury on her hand and you can tell it gets to him. A girl's hands are important. But she just brushes it off. He ends up carrying her home while she's asleep.
Life moves on. The old pool hall they used to know is gone. It’s a restaurant now. Tang Yixun decides he’s going to work his butt off to earn enough money to buy it back. Shen Xiaojun also finds him to say thanks for the help earlier. As a thank you, he offers to get Ye Haitang into his tutoring class. She’s already a good student. So with extra help, her grades would be even better. Tang Yixun thinks it’s a great idea and agrees. After that, he just works nonstop.
He uses some of his new money to buy a gift for Haitang. He picks out two boxes of imported cookies. These are the exact same cookie boxes they will eventually use to hide the letters from the future.
The Letterbox Comes Home
He brings the cookies home and they share them. But then something clicks for Tang Yixun. He realizes communicating with his future son is a little weird. The son's last name is Shen. His last name is Tang. The only person they know with that name is Shen Xiaojun. And Haitang is now spending all this time with him at tutoring.
He gets jealous. He gets really jealous. He declares he's going to find that letterbox and get some answers. The next day, he actually does it. He digs through a garbage heap, finds the letterbox, and brings it home.
He and Haitang write a new letter to Shen Cheng and Yu Nian in the future. They ask what the heck is going on. Tang Yixun makes sure to add a very specific question. He asks Shen Cheng who his real father is.
The Past - Uncovering Family Secrets
A Father's Confession
Shen Dashan finds Tang Yixun and Ye Haitang. He offers them money to thank them for their help. They don't want to take it. So, to convince them, he starts talking about Haitang's mother, Wu Fengying.
He tells them her mother wasn't planning to leave town by herself. She was actually trying to get two boat tickets, not one. Haitang listens to this new information. She starts to put the pieces together. She realizes her own father, Ye Yibo, probably stole the factory money. Her mother just took the fall for him.
Haitang's Realization
This triggers a memory for Haitang. She remembers the day her mother left. Her father, Ye Yibo, was taking her to school. Her mother secretly slipped a boat ticket into her hand. Haitang was young, but she understood. She held onto that ticket tightly so her father wouldn't see it.
After school, she ran to the meeting spot to find her mother. But Wu Fengying was already gone. For all these years, Haitang has blamed her mother. She thought her mother abandoned her.
Now, hearing Shen Dashan's story, she knows that can't be true. Her mother must have run into some kind of trouble that day. Tang Yixun guesses that maybe her father, Ye Yibo, showed up. His presence could have put her mother in danger, forcing her to leave alone. Haitang isn't sure about the details. But she is sure about one thing. Her father stole the money, not her mother. She admits she's been trying to find her mother for years with no luck.
The Future - A Fading Connection
The End of the Line
Back in the present day, there's a problem. Zhang Quan tells Yu Nian and Shen Cheng that the area with the letterbox is scheduled for demolition. If the letterbox is destroyed, their connection to the past is gone forever. They both start to panic and decide they need to go back there immediately.
Then Yu Nian gets a phone call from the police. The older Tang Yixun has been waiting at the cemetery for so long that he collapsed. A cemetery worker found him and called for help. Yu Nian rushes to the hospital. But when she gets there, Tang Yixun is gone. She frantically runs out to look for him.
Tang Yixun's Final Dance
The older Tang Yixun has gone back to the cemetery to wait. He's weak and starts to hallucinate. He sees Ye Haitang, but she's young again. She tells him it's time to go home.
In his vision, he becomes young again, too. They are back in their best years. They hold hands. They go to see a beautiful snowfall. They even dance together in the snow.
