During the Longqing era of the Great Zhou dynasty, Ning Wanqing, daughter of the Minister of Rites, astonishes everyone with a pipa performance at a plum-blossom banquet. There, she meets Xiao Yunjing, heir to the Prince of Zhenbei, amid falling snow. Beneath a sky full of snowflakes, they quietly vow, “If someday we share the same snowfall, then in this life we’ll have shared a lifetime together.” Neither knows that fate has already laid a cruel trap for them.
The Crown Prince Zhou Yusheng’s imperial decree arranging a marriage and a report from the northern frontier arrive on the same day. Dressed in her wedding gown, Ning Wanqing hears the devastating news that Xiao Yunjing has died in battle. Then, on her wedding day, she learns that he has survived and returned victorious. The Crown Princess, confined within the palace, and the returning general are drawn ever deeper into a whirlpool of power and love. The Crown Prince’s treasonous conspiracy, bloody struggles lurking beneath the court’s surface, and a slow-acting poison counting down to death all drive them toward ruin.
“If this world has no place for our vow, then I shall offer you the empire as a betrothal gift, and make the Yellow Springs our matchmaker.” As Xiao Yunjing points his sword at the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Ning Wanqing slips a golden hairpin concealing a secret letter into her hair. In the courtyard of the Ministry of Justice, beneath the snow on the Double Ninth Festival, she takes a deadly sword strike meant for him. At last, their wish to “share the snow and grow old together” comes true in the plum grove. For the next thirty years, snow falls every year at the Snow-Memories Pavilion in the Prince Regent’s residence, but no one ever shares the view again.
