The rebels breached Jiankang, and my wife's entire family was hung from the city walls. The local governor urged me to hurry and rescue them, but I led thirty thousand troops a hundred li away to hold our position. In my previous life, I fought desperately to save my wife's family, sending one blood-written letter after another, begging her to bring supply carts as reinforcements. By the Huai River, where she should have been preparing military provisions, my wife was reliving an old romance with her childhood sweetheart, drinking and carousing. More than half of my thirty thousand personal troops were lost before she finally arrived, long overdue. My wife's family was rescued, but her childhood sweetheart was captured by roaming enemy soldiers and drowned in the Huai River. On the surface, she remained calm, still playing music with me
