Shattered Past, A Father's Return

Episode 1

Katy's husband, Zhao Zhigang, has already made the deal in his head: their 19-year-old daughter Nina will marry Mr. Wang, a man closing in on 60, and in return Zhao Zhigang gets a top heart specialist and a promotion to regional vice president. Katy refuses flatly. She has accepted how he treats her, but she will not trade her daughter. So he cuts her off — Nina's medicine runs 22,000 a month, her mother's nursing home 10,000, and he gives her one month to earn it herself. Nina offers to go through with it. Katy tells her nothing will ever make her trade her. Meanwhile, Mr. Lu is still searching for a woman he wronged twenty years ago.

Episode 2

Katy goes job hunting with a senior nutritionist certificate and twenty years of home experience, but the high-end clients want someone younger. She is rejected as a nutritionist because of her twenty-year gap. Then she spots a Lu Corporation ad: senior office cleaning, 15,000 a month, no age limit. On the way, she notices a man doubled over with stomach pain. She tells him it's a stress-induced spasm, warns him not to take stomach medicine carelessly, and helps him sit and loosen his tie. He stares after her — that back looks strangely familiar. Katy hurries off, afraid of being late.

Episode 3

Katy takes the cleaning job: every public restroom in the building, the corridors, the stairwells. The pay is 15,000, one month probation. Then a coworker recognizes her — the former Sutton heiress, now scrubbing toilets. The mockery is immediate, but Katy says earning her own living honestly is nothing to be ashamed of. At home, Nina has good news too: she finished her third painting and earned 300. Back at Lu Corporation, Katy's professional background impresses someone enough that she's taken to meet Mr. Lu — and the moment they see each other, both freeze.

Episode 4

In Mr. Lu's kitchen, Katy lays out her credentials — senior nutritionist, traditional Chinese food therapy — and insists she isn't a fraud. She makes him a stomach-soothing meal from the yam, okra, and mushrooms she brought, plus two eggs and millet from his fridge, and lists every item. After deducting her own ingredients, 326 is left, charged to tomorrow. Other nutritionists pad the bill, she says; she only takes what she's owed. She tells him to drink the porridge warm, then leaves. Mr. Lu tastes it and pauses. This porridge — he has tasted it somewhere before.

Episode 5

The nursing home calls: Katy's mother's fees are overdue, and if she doesn't pay by month's end, her mother must leave. Katy promises to make it right. At work, a coworker deliberately spills something and orders her to clean it, taunting her about her worn-out face. Meanwhile, Chen Ming scolds Mr. Lu for drinking again — the old man is pressing him about the heir, and every time he drinks, his stomach rebels. Mr. Lu admits it plainly: twenty years ago he hurt an innocent woman, the only stain on his life, and he never found her to apologize. The trail is long dead. He doesn't even have a name.

Episode 6

A coworker catches Katy at the company and sneers — the former Mrs. Sutton, working as a cleaner. Chen Ming introduces Mr. Lu properly: he is the president of Lu Corporation. Katy retreats to the third floor. When Mr. Lu's stomach flares up again, Chen Ming calls Katy to the top-floor office. On her way, she bumps into the same coworker, who accuses her of scheming to seduce the CEO. Upstairs, Katy helps Mr. Lu through the pain and tells him to stop holding things in. He agrees — saying it out loud does ease the weight. Then he starts: twenty years ago...

Episode 7

Mr. Lu begins his story, then has to leave for something urgent. The coworker corners Katy again, this time with a punishment: the third-floor restrooms need deep cleaning, and Katy has to do all of it alone, no matter how late. At his home that evening, Mr. Lu waits for his meal, and Katy arrives late, apologizing — she nearly fainted from low blood sugar. He looks at her and asks the question he's been circling: is it you, from twenty years ago? Katy freezes. Neither of them says the rest out loud.

Episode 8

Mr. Lu gives Chen Ming an order: investigate Katy, and find out whether her family lived in Yuncheng twenty years ago. Chen Ming is stunned — is he suspecting Katy is the woman from that night? Then a bracelet vanishes. A coworker's jade bangle, a family heirloom, was on her desk at noon and is now gone. Suspicion lands on Katy. She admits she wiped the desk but saw no bracelet. The coworker demands to search her. Katy refuses — they have no right. The accusation hardens: she's been sneaking up to the CEO's floor, so of course she's guilty.

Episode 9

The coworkers won't let it go. They drag up old rumors — that Katy's sick daughter isn't her husband's child, that she got pregnant and married in a hurry. They sneer that a toilet cleaner chasing the CEO's floor is nothing but a gold digger, and that a woman with a daughter of unclear parentage would steal a bracelet easily. Katy tells them to shut up about her daughter. They threaten to search her and call the police, then haul her toward the storage room. At the same time, Chen Ming reports: Katy did live in Yuncheng twenty years ago, but her father married her off within three months, the Sutton family went bankrupt, and she moved to Jiangcheng.

Episode 10

Mr. Lu learns the truth about the storage room: someone has framed Katy for theft and is holding her there for questioning. He doesn't hesitate — she isn't that kind of person; she wouldn't even overcharge for an egg. He orders the car. He has searched twenty years for this woman, and no one gets to touch her. Inside the storage room, the coworkers give Katy one last chance to hand over the bracelet. She says she didn't take it. They pin her down and start tearing at her clothes, recording it all. Then the door slams open and a voice orders them to stop.

Katy's spent twenty years swallowing everything — but watching them corner her daughter and strip her dignity in a storage room is where the patience runs out. Press play and see who walks through that door.