A painting sealed away for a hundred years, Ten Thousand Layers of Spring Mountains, and an old military-pay case buried by time;
a poor scholar who writes to bring peace to the realm, and the orphaned daughter of a weaving family who embroiders the land into being.
They first meet at Spring Mountain Academy, beneath apricot blossoms and a fine spring rain. Amid paper and ink, the young Shen Yan glimpses spring mountains at Jiang Wan’s fingertips;
they meet again on a rainy night in Jiangnan, amid turmoil over the salt trade, when Jiang Wan saves Shen Yan, newly returned from exile, in the midst of blood and fire.
For the next thirty years, they face together corruption in the imperial examinations, factional strife in the capital, blizzards on the northern frontier, and sorcery in Miao territory.
They wield an embroidered scroll as a blade, laying open the most hidden wounds of a prosperous empire;
with a marriage contract as their pledge, they write the tenderest love letter amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
At last, when peace comes to the realm, she falls into a ten-year sleep;
he watches over her for ten years, then embroiders another ten thousand layers of spring mountains, all to guide her back to wakefulness.
On the day of the final chapter, Jiang Wan opens her eyes, and Shen Yan softly asks:
“How is Jiangnan?”
She replies, “The spring mountains are as they’ve always been. The only thing missing is you.”
