To Speak Up (Qichi) 启齿 by Zu Le 祖乐

“When people fall in love and decide to choose true love, they take off their masks, break free from constraints, and with the sincerity that has quietly grown in secret, they hesitantly speak up.”

Yu Zhi Mei, a car media director, reads this sentence during a boring afternoon and finds herself unable to sleep. The person who said this is Jian Zhaowen, the founder of the social dating app “lovedate.” Jian Zhaowen, whose passion fades easily, encounters Yu Zhi Mei, someone completely outside his usual “match range,” and begins to question the algorithm and purpose of his own app. Meanwhile, “lovedate” influences those yearning for love: Ou Jinghe, unhappy in her marriage, chooses secret meetings to escape loneliness; Zheng Zeyan, who never binds himself with morality, decides to get married; Shi Rui, young but counting down her time, keeps confessing her feelings, only to be repeatedly hurt…

People fear falling in love, long for marriage, grow weary of raising children, and suppress their emotions as if love shouldn’t even be mentioned. Rationality and desire clash repeatedly, and when tired of societal constraints, they make the decision to seek true love—no matter the cost, they dive in without hesitation.