Moonlit Sacrifice in Jinling

Set in Nanjing from 1936 to 1937, this is a cross-national romance crushed beneath the torrents of its era. Guo Jingwei, a wealthy young man who graduated from the Whampoa Military Academy, meets Murakami Sakurako at the Lantern Festival. She is a Japanese girl who moved to Nanjing with her father. He is a steady, resolute Chinese officer; she is a gentle, reserved foreign girl. Their secret meetings by Xuanwu Lake and the moonlit tenderness they share beside the Qinhuai River kindle their love, but they remain trapped by national barriers and family grievances.

Sakurako's father, Murakami Shikō, is a fanatical warmonger. In a bid to curry favor with those in power, he forces his daughter to marry Japanese Army officer Matsui Iwane. When the Marco Polo Bridge Incident breaks out in 1937, Guo Jingwei is ordered to defend Lugou Bridge. Before departing, he and Sakurako promise to meet again. But the smoke of battle cuts off his way home, and he dies a heroic death in the fighting. After the Japanese army captures Nanjing, Sakurako learns of his death and pretends to accept the marriage, hoping to assassinate Matsui and avenge him. When her plan fails, she entrusts her younger brother with bearing witness to the truth, then sinks into the waters of the Qinhuai River, bringing this tragic wartime romance to a sorrowful end with her life.

This story is entirely fictional