In the seventh year of Xuanhe's reign, Bianliang City was still prosperous with singing and dancing. When Cheng Yanzhou, a young imperial student, was inscribing a wall in Fan Tower, he met Li Qingwu, the daughter of Prime Minister Li Gang, because of the song "Broken Array". When the Jin soldiers and cavalry broke through the Yellow River defense line, the pair were forced to be involved in the torrent of history. Cheng Yanzhou followed Zongze to defend Cizhou and witnessed the absurd farce of the "Liujia Divine Soldiers"; Li Qingwu organized a women's rescue team when the city was destroyed and used "Compendium of Materia Medica" to treat wounded soldiers. The work uses a brushwork that alternates between virtual and real to show how the famous calligraphy and painting "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" became the spiritual totem of the exiled court when Huizong's art kingdom collapsed. When Li Qingwu discovered the fragments of the scrolls that Cheng Yanzhou had repainted with blood and tears in the rebuilt Hanlin Painting Academy in Lin'an, the two souls crushed by the war were finally reborn in the blood of culture. The novel reproduces the tenacious regeneration of civilization under the crushing force of violence through four key scenes: "Poetry Meeting in Fanlou", "Book Burning in Genyue", "Bloody Battle in Cizhou" and "Reunion at the Painting Academy".
