In the twenty-seventh year of the Republic of China, Bai Qingru, the daughter of the Bai family, a prominent family in the south of the Yangtze River, was forced to marry the son of a warlord under the arrangement of the family. On the eve of her wedding, she met the poor painter Lu Chenzhou in a hazy alleyway. The freedom and purity she longed for were hidden in the Jiangnan landscape he sketched.
Lu Chenzhou's talent and gentleness made Bai Qingru willing to put aside her family background. The two made a private decision in the studio for life, but they didn't know that this short-lived beauty had already been planted with bitter seeds by fate. The Bai family was in ruins due to the war and urgently needed protection from the warlords. However, Lu Chenzhou was slandered and imprisoned in order to save Bai Qingru.
In order to save her sweetheart, Bai Qingru reluctantly put on her wedding dress. On the wedding day, Lu Chenzhou appeared in the auditorium covered with scars and used his last bit of strength to tear up the marriage document. In the smoke of troubled times, one is shackled by the family and the other is oppressed by the power. Their love is shattered under the crushing force of the times. Bai Qingru looked at Lu Shenzhou's retreating back, and finally understood that some love is destined to only become a sad song of departure in troubled times.
