Xing Zhendong belongs to a branch of the Xing family many generations removed from its main line. He travels north and south of the Yangtze River as a physician, healing the sick and helping the common people. He is one of the disciples of the Yaoling School. In Longcheng are Wu Zhanshan of the Five Elements School and Luo Zhengxing of the Anxing School. Due to old grudges and clashes of interest, the three schools become embroiled in conflict. Wu Zhanshan and Luo Zhengxing join forces with Commander Liu to frame Xing Zhendong, chiefly to seize the Xing family’s ancestral secret manuals and gold. Xing is forced to change his name to Wang Bentang and flee upstream along the Yangtze. Conspiracies and peril dog his every step, making for a harrowing journey. After escaping to Yaoling Mountain, Wang Bentang hides various secret manuals beneath a pile of rocks behind Yaoling Temple, then disappears without a trace. The truth does not come to light until fifty years later.
Wang Xiulian is Wang Bentang’s only descendant. Clever and gifted, she inherits his medical skills. She loves Han Qing, known as Mad Han, but through a twist of fate she marries Li Kaiyun instead. Heartbroken, Han Qing becomes a monk at Guanyin Temple, where he is ordained. Later generations call him Han the Half-Immortal. The story of these three unfolds over half a century.
Wang Xiulian has five children. Then, one day, Li Kaiyun is abducted on the road and taken to a military camp, and they never see each other again. Many years later, Li Kaiyun suddenly returns to his hometown, only to find Wang Xiulian’s lonely grave. Though Han Qing makes advances in love, Wang Xiulian is a chaste woman who will never marry a second husband. Through those years of hardship and turmoil, how does a woman face bandits, tyrants, all sorts of people, and the upheavals of the times, survive, and earn everyone’s respect? When she dies, people from miles around come to see her off. Every year on the Qingming Festival, they come to tend her grave. Let us discover her legend through this story. I believe it will move and cleanse readers’ hearts, leaving them unable to let go of it for a long time... This book is one million Chinese characters long.
