On the southern frontier, flames of war rage. General Lou Xianyue, clad in bloodstained heavy armor, strides through mountains of corpses and seas of blood like an asura. Yet inside the camp celebrating her triumphant return, a shadow of poison more deadly than any battlefield threat is spreading. When she returns to camp on the verge of collapse, carrying the lifeless bodies of her younger brother, Lou Xianxing, pierced by a hidden arrow, and her mother, Madam Lou, who fell from the city wall, the world that sustained her crumbles completely. The physician Song Yunqi, eyes nearly bursting with grief, catches the bodies of his beloved and her family in his battered arms, but cannot stop despair from swallowing her. “A Qi... We can't go back to Jiangnan...” Carrying his promise of a life spent treating patients in a thatched cottage and growing old together, she sinks into darkness.
When all is settled, she returns alone to the ruined walls of the Lou residence. Her fingertips brush over every inch of desolation, while memories of her father and brothers' warm laughter and the childish voice of her younger brother saying, “Xing'er loves his big sister best,” still ring in her ears. At last, she walks to the ruins of Anhetang, where she first met Song Yunqi. Memories surge back, from their first encounter, when he was branded a “good-for-nothing who harms the people,” to their vow beneath the moon, sealed by a phoenix hairpin. Their promise to treat patients, prepare medicine, and live out their days in Jiangnan was his final light, yet it became the words that pierced her heart when they parted: “A Yue... I'm sorry... Live well...”
There are no apricot blossoms in the misty rain of Jiangnan. Lou Xianyue wears a splendid wedding gown of dark red and black, as red as blood, and a nine-phoenix hairpin, while cradling a blackwood spirit tablet engraved with “In memory of my late husband, Song Yunqi.” A lonely valley by a cold pool becomes her wedding hall. Strong liquor mixed with a deadly poison goes down her throat. Amid a sacrifice of blood and tears, she whispers to the cold tablet, “We will never be apart again...” Blood stains her robes red. At last, with a broken smile, she collapses beside the tombstone engraved with her beloved's name, completing this blood-soaked funeral and joining him in death.
