Director: Tu Hailun

Synopsis

At dawn, Mr. and Mrs. Bai and their daughter, like three tightly meshed gears, make fresh noodles with precision. Their days are snow-white and warm. A teenage boy with the mind of a child peers under the counter for the first time and nervously hands over a hand-drawn "rainbow banknote" with crooked lines. Mr. Bai pauses for a moment, whistles, and slips a bag of fresh noodles into the boy's worn schoolbag. From then on, every morning the boy trades ever more carefully drawn "fake notes" for noodles. Nine years pass in a flash, and every morning the boy still uses his heart-shaped lens to reflect the morning light onto the faces of the noodle shop family. It turns out that noodles made with kindness and a childlike heart that is never exposed are the most expensive noodles.