Pure Admiration, Absolute Love

Qing Mu Jue Ai is a mournful ballad set in the turbulent Republic of China. In the winter of 1917, Li Muxi is married off in a family alliance to Gu Qingyan, an officer she has never met. On their wedding night, they strike a bargain: he will join the army, and she will teach in the countryside. As war rages, their letters bring them closer, but they repeatedly miss each other amid the conflict, a miscarriage, and misunderstandings. Nurse Yang Yue, consumed by jealousy, secretly takes revenge, causing Li Muxi to lose her child and setting her on the path to vengeance. Gu Qingyan serves on the battlefield for half a lifetime and rises to become a founding general, yet never marries. Only in his later years does he learn that Li Muxi died long ago in a remote mountain village. Over four decades of national upheaval, two lovers are swept along by the tides of their time, caught in the inevitable tragedy of a love beyond redemption.