Bao Shangen’s Farewell Message for #NeverEndingSummer
“It feels like just a moment ago I was still in Weihai, feeling the sea breeze, wearing my school uniform, and growing dizzy under the summer sun. And in the blink of an eye, the summer that belonged to Zhou Wan has come to an end.
Thank you, Zhou Wan for giving me the chance to step back into an eighteen-year-old girl’s life and to walk beside her through the ten years that followed.
The word “youth” is always associated with so many beautiful things, yet Zhou Wan’s youth was a long, solitary storm she had to weather on her own.
She was sharp, yet gentle. She never bared her claws openly. She buried all her pain deep inside, like a seed encased in a hard shell. To everyone else, she seemed impossible to knock down, yet no one ever saw the heart beneath that hardened shell, breaking apart again and again.
She endured, and she remained silent. She never spoke about the pain of her family, her debts, the jobs she worked, or caring for her grandmother. Even when she loved someone so deeply that she was willing to tell a devastating lie just to push him away, she still remained silent. Yet her silence was louder than any cry. She taught me that even if I don’t shine all the time, I can still be loved. Once you’ve made it through your cracks, they are no longer cracks—they become the path you’ve walked.
Her eighteenth year held very little sweetness—only endless bills and love she could never bring herself to confess. Her summer wasn’t filled with soda and desserts, but with sweltering classrooms, lonely walks home after work, and sighs beside her grandmother’s hospital bed. Yet she never truly gave up on herself. Even in her darkest moments, she held tightly to a tiny flame and kept moving forward. That resilience—the kind that grows out of hardship and is earned through perseverance—is what I most want to carry into my own life after finishing this role.
Thank you to the director and everyone involved in Blazing Summer, both in front of and behind the camera, for creating such a uniquely beautiful dream and allowing me to experience a youth that felt both dreamlike and real.
Thank you, Keyu. Between people our age, some understandings need no words. Those afternoons when we laughed until our stomachs hurt, and those late nights when we cried until we couldn’t stop, will always be a testament to the bond we shared as classmates. Thank you, Sister Fang Fang, Yingbo, Ke Chun, Sister Huang Yi, Yina, Weilun, and everyone else. Thank you all for bringing that summer’s story back to life with your wonderful performances.
And thank you to everyone who stayed with us in front of your screens. Some of you cried for Zhou Wan. Some stood up for her. Others chose to see the world through her eyes and understand both the pain and resilience of her youth. That alone makes everything worthwhile. I’ve read so many of your comments—some made me feel truly understood, while others helped me see the path ahead more clearly.
Goodbye, Wanwan. You were the first coming-of-age role I’ve played that spanned so many years, and the first character I truly grew up alongside. As for everything left unsaid, let’s leave it to the summer evening breeze. After all, during that blazing summer, we were all incredibly brave”
getting straight allegations bec his apartment is neat and minimalistic is so funny bec no straight man would clean with a lint roller every 5 mins and have no used laundry on the floor
this groomer claims that she’s unbothered thus doing these vids to annoy her critics, but it’s making her look more guilty bec she wouldn’t do all these things if she doesn’t care tbh lol