Women at the heart of the story

Shortly after the broadcast of Vanished Name, a popular drama that quickly garnered over 800 million clicks of its related topics on its debut night, director Yang Yang noticed her smartphone kept buzzing with messages.

To her surprise, some of the most devoted viewers among her friends are those who have grown up overseas and now live in the United States or Japan.

"I was really puzzled and asked them, 'You've never lived in the Chinese mainland or traveled to northeastern China — where the story takes place — so why do you like watching it?'" Yang recalls during an interview with China Daily.

Their answer impressed her. What appealed to them most, it turned out, was not finding out who the killer was — even though the drama begins with the discovery of a mysterious body buried inside a concrete sculpture at a middle school 20 years ago. Instead, they found the emotional aspect of family bonds, rooted in typical Asian culture, to be universal and deeply resonant.

Adapted from writer Yi Nan's novel of the same title, the 31-episode TV drama unfolds across two parallel timelines — one set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the other in 2023. Spanning more than 20 years, it weaves together the suffering and struggles faced by two generations of women.

One of the drama's protagonists, Ren Xiaoming, has a tough childhood — having to take care of her mentally ill younger brother while their mother often struggles financially. The mother works as a hospital caregiver, sells steamed buns at construction sites, and even marries four times in search of better financial support.

Ren's best friend, Bai Shu, has an outwardly different life yet also struggles with her own pain. Adopted by a wealthy family, she is treated as a substitute for the family's late daughter, who passed away at age 12. Ge Wenjun, the foster mother, has a strong desire to control every aspect of the girl's life — from installing a glass wall in her room so she can supervise her homework, to secretly following her after school.