Chronicles of the Canglan Sword Rain

When verses congeal into the bones of a sword, and butterfly shadows are steeped in blood, the crane-shaped lamp atop Mount Taiwei illuminates two youths bound by fate to a sword tassel. Xiao Nuo, grandson of Su Xin, holds half of the silver bell marked "Canglan." Su Han, a holy maiden of the Five Poisons Sect, bears the bloodline of its saints and carries a crane-shaped sword scabbard. The bloodline of the twin cranes makes its first cry amid the rivers and lakes' bloody storms, yet they do not know that the fragments of a manuscript and the keepsakes left behind by their grandfather are pieces of a plot spanning twenty years. The secret manual for cultivating poetry and swordsmanship lies hidden in the Green Tomb; the forbidden art of the Rebirth Butterfly covets the Mandate of Heaven; and beneath the bronze demon mask of a hidden Jinwu Guard agent with poisoned scales lies a shocking conspiracy to resurrect the first Sword Master with the emperor's blood.

Broken verses, broken swords, broken resolve: three lifetimes of tribulation forge an ideal of "protecting the people," not "making a name." Xiao Nuo's silver bell can shatter the black butterfly poison mist surrounding the puppet horde, but it cannot sever his blood-bound bond with Su Han. Xie Yunzhou's Green Lotus Sword guards the spring tea of the Qiyun Pavilion; Wang Yan's bronze tongue is silenced by the secret words spoken to protect his master; and the crane-shaped tattoo on the palm of the false emperor, Xiao Chengyu, is gradually revealing the Jinwu Guard's madness: "sacrificing the world as an offering." The star chart in the Sword Tomb turns, and the twin crane sword tassels entwine. When Su Han's poems and Xiao Nuo's sword shadows come together in the depths of the Green Tomb to form the words, "A crane's shadow is never alone; the human world is where it returns," they finally realize that Su Xin's plan was never to create a legendary Sword Master. It was to make the edge of poetry and the sword forever point toward those who oppress others, while the tenderness of protecting the flowers takes deep root in their bloodline. This is no lonely world of rivers and lakes belonging to one person and one sword. It is a flower of poetry and swordsmanship blooming side by side amid the bloodshed. Even if the verses and swords are broken, they will protect the lights of countless homes and keep them shining. Even if the road ahead is swept by sword rain stirred up by the wings of the Rebirth Butterfly, they will let the crane's shadow illuminate every inch of the green mountains of the human world.