Some people still think it’s crazy that Sheng Shaoyou forgave Hua Yong so quickly after the lies were revealed and how he fell harder after learning how obsessed with him Hua Young was.
But this part from his birthday short story is such a phenomenal description of exactly why:
When he was a teenager, in a classmate's yearbook under "Your lifelong wish" Sheng Shaoyou had once written truthfully:
My lifelong wish is for someone to love me — only me.
Now, he didn't need to wish anymore.
Because if some god were to ask, When do you feel most certain that you are loved?
Sheng Shaoyou would answer without hesitation:
"Every time I think of him."
Every dream had already come true.
There was no need to wish again.
Someone would love him fiercely until death — far more than they loved themselves.
Shaoyou was so affected by his father’s adultery and his mother’s early death and his entire personality as an adult is built from that trauma.
One of the parts in the novel/show that’s stuck out to me the most is when he visits Sheng Fang in the hospital after the public proposal and ends up saying:
"Being the child you value most is honestly meaningless. You give me all the responsibility, but your favoritism goes to someone else.”
In the Viki translations for the show, ‘affection’ is used instead of ‘favoritism’ and I like that.
Sheng Shaoyou always wanted someone who loved him and showed him affection, without having to worry about the one he loves straying from him or showing someone else more love. The love and affection he didn’t get from his family, the love and affection his mother never got from his father.
Shaoyou wanted to be an adult who had everything he and his mother never got.
Hua Yong was literally what Sheng Shaoyou wished for every year on his birthday.
So happy birthday, Sheng Shaoyou. I’m so happy you got your wish.