Seeking inspiration, Gu Qingci, a Jiangnan painter, ventures alone into the remote mountains of Miao territory, only to tumble into a nest of snakes. He is rescued by A Li, the sacred son of the Miao people.
With a vermilion mark between his brows, A Li is as cool and luminous as the moon, yet harbors a passionate devotion. Gu Qingci paints mountains and rivers by the thousand, but can capture only one person's face.
As feelings blossom between them in the moonlit bamboo grove, neither knows that fate has already laid a love curse upon them:
A sacred son and a mortal are destined never to stay together.
When Gu Qingci is forced to leave Miao territory, A Li makes a promise beneath the moonlight: “I will come find you.”
But what awaits them is endless longing and a divide between life and death they cannot cross.
A love curse beneath the moon, a soul captured in a painting: in the end, they become an eternal tribulation in both their hearts.
