Suchi meets Haiwen on her first day of school, defends him from bullies, and shares her lunch with him.

Suchi takes Haiwen to a fortune teller, who tells them they share a rare soul connection called yoefen.

When Japan surrenders and mobs fill the streets, Suchi kisses Haiwen for the first time after seeing his fierce concern for her safety.

Haiwen learns his father has been arrested for unwitting ties to a communist spy and his brother must now join the military.

Haiwen plays his audition piece and 'Lovesick Dream' for Suchi in the park, and she proposes marriage; he refuses.

Haiwen leaves his violin on Suchi's doorstep with a note reading 'Forgive me' and ships out with the Nationalist Army.

Suchi and her sister Sulan are sent by their father on a train to Hong Kong to escape the Civil War fighting in Shanghai.

The Communist Party takes control of mainland China, severing all contact between Haiwen, Suchi, and their Shanghai families.

Saikeung corners Suchi alone in her dressing room, rapes her, and declares they will be married in May.

Suchi boards a Hong Kong ferry intending to die by suicide but spots Haiwen among the passengers just before she jumps.

Suchi returns Haiwen's violin to him during their Hong Kong reunion, and they spend the night together at his hotel.

Chiang Kai-shek dies, and Haiwen realizes the Nationalist Army will never reclaim mainland China, meaning he cannot go home.

Haiwen runs into Suchi at a Los Angeles grocery store and they speak to each other for the first time in over 60 years.

Haiwen calls Suchi to tell her he has located her mother, still alive in a nursing home in Shanghai.

Suchi, Haiwen, and Suchi's son Samson board an airplane together to fly to Shanghai to visit Suchi's mother.

Haiwen and Suchi meet as children in Shanghai and fall in love during the turbulent years surrounding World War II and the Chinese Civil War. Their relationship is severed when Haiwen enlists in the Nationalist Army in his brother's place and Suchi is sent as a refugee to Hong Kong, with the Communist takeover of mainland China cutting off all contact between them. Each builds a separate life — Haiwen marries and eventually immigrates to Los Angeles, while Suchi is coerced into a abusive marriage in Hong Kong after Saikeung rapes her and she finds herself pregnant. A single miraculous encounter on a Hong Kong ferry prevents Suchi from dying by suicide and allows the two to briefly reconnect, but decades pass before they meet again. When Haiwen spots Suchi in a Los Angeles grocery store more than sixty years after their parting, their bond proves undiminished. The novel closes with them flying together to Shanghai with Suchi's son Samson to visit her long-lost mother, finally finding their way toward home and each other.

The central love story of Haiwen and Suchi across six decades of separation.

Suchi's mother discovers she has been spending afternoons with Haiwen and beats her for being alone with a boy.

Suchi charms a Japanese soldier at a wartime checkpoint with her school Japanese, persuading him to let her and Haiwen pass.

Haiwen overhears Suchi telling her mother that he always puts family above everything else, filling him with guilt and resolve.

Haiwen decides to enlist in the Nationalist Army in his older brother's place and buys an airplane pin as a gift for Suchi.

Sulan reveals to a shocked Suchi that their father sent them to Hong Kong to keep them safe, not for a business trip.

A fire sweeps through the Hong Kong shantytown where their landlady Mrs. Chan and her daughters are sheltering, killing them all.

After his army friend Li Tsin drowns, Haiwen visits a food stall and meets the kind owner's daughter, Linyee, who speaks Mandarin.

When Saikeung pays Sulan's expensive medical bill at the British clinic, Suchi realizes she has no choice but to marry him.

Samson tells his abusive father Saikeung to stop being cruel, and Sulan openly calls Saikeung a bully in front of the family.

Haiwen recognizes Sulan at a New York fashion label, learns Suchi is in an abusive marriage, but tears up her phone number.

After helping Samson settle into his university dormitory in California, Suchi decides she will not return to Hong Kong or her husband.

Haiwen visits Shanghai and kneels at his mother's grave, knowing he will never receive her forgiveness for leaving her behind.

Haiwen attends a friend's 80th birthday party at a Chinese restaurant and is surprised to discover that Suchi is one of the guests.

Haiwen drives along the highway shoulder on a dare from Suchi and asks for her phone number when he drops her home.

Samson confronts Suchi about refusing to visit her mother, and she confesses she feels ashamed of the choices she made to survive.

While the main plot follows Haiwen and Suchi's love story, the events around them reveal how family, war, and survival determined the paths their lives took. From Suchi's mother beating her for spending time with Haiwen as a child, to the devastating shantytown fire that killed their beloved landlady and her daughters in Hong Kong, secondary events consistently redirect the characters' futures in ways they cannot control. Haiwen's chance meeting with Linyee at a Taiwanese food stall after a friend's drowning becomes the foundation of his marriage, while Saikeung's payment of Sulan's medical bill traps Suchi into a union she never wanted. A decade later, Haiwen encounters Sulan in New York and learns the truth about Suchi's abusive marriage but chooses not to act. The novel's resolution depends on events in the years that follow — Suchi's quiet decision to abandon her husband after helping her son move to university, Haiwen's emotional return to his mother's grave in Shanghai, and finally Samson's confrontation with Suchi that allows her to release her shame and move toward reconciliation.

The supporting moments and secondary characters that shaped Haiwen and Suchi's separate lives.

Seven-year-old Suchi wanders her Shanghai neighborhood and stops outside a courtyard where a small boy plays violin with startling beauty.

Haiwen takes Suchi to see his music conservatory and hands her a newspaper ad for a flight attendant job after the war.

On Suchi's birthday, Haiwen never arrives to pick her up, leaving her waiting alone outside school for an hour.

Haiwen's mother gives him the family gold ring and encourages him to offer it to Suchi as an apology for his long absence.

Haiwen plays 'Lovesick Dream' on his violin for Suchi, and she understands for the first time that his music reveals his love for her.

Suchi wakes to find Haiwen's violin left on her doorstep along with a note that reads only 'Forgive me.'

Suchi asks a Hong Kong club manager for a job as a waitress to earn money for her sister Sulan's worsening medical needs.

Suchi performs 'Lovesick Dream' onstage at the club for the first time, imagining Haiwen playing his violin beside her.

Sulan is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at an expensive British medical clinic in Hong Kong, leaving Suchi desperate for money.

On her deathbed, Haiwen's mother gives Suchi's mother the gold ring, saying it belongs to Suchi and must be returned to her.

Haiwen confronts his sister Junjun with the truth that her denunciation of their father to the communists caused his death.

Suchi grows angry when Haiwen insists on talking about the past at Chinese New Year dinner and orders him to leave her home.

Suchi calls Sulan's surviving partner Momo, who tells her that Sulan would have wanted her to go see her mother in Shanghai.

Over lunch, Suchi tells Haiwen she first knew she loved him the day he brought her an umbrella at school.

On the airplane to Shanghai, Suchi realizes that home is not a place but the people who share your memories and ghosts.

Beneath the sweep of historical events, Homeseeking is driven by small revelations and quiet turning points that permanently alter who its characters are. Suchi's childhood discovery of a boy playing violin and Haiwen's gesture of a flight attendant job listing tell us everything about who they each want to be before the world intervenes. The moment Suchi first understands Haiwen's love through his violin playing, the morning she finds the instrument abandoned on her doorstep, and her first night performing their shared song 'Lovesick Dream' in a Hong Kong club are emotional fulcrums on which her life pivots. A deathbed scene in Shanghai in which Haiwen's mother entrusts the gold ring to Suchi's mother captures the enduring love of parents across political divides. In the novel's final act, Suchi must reckon with her shame, her estranged mother, and her need for Haiwen — and it is a quiet lunch conversation about an umbrella that signals her heart has finally opened again. The closing image of Suchi on a plane to Shanghai, understanding at last that home is people rather than places, reveals how far she has traveled inwardly across the decades.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that define Haiwen and Suchi's inner journeys.