The war in the second year of Jingkang burned the prosperity of Bianliang City to ashes. The royal family of the Song Dynasty became a prisoner, and Wei Shi, the concubine who once lived in the deep palace, was also coerced by the Jin soldiers and embarked on the journey to the north. The phoenix hairpins and pearls of the past were all gone, and the splendid palace skirts were worn into rags. She stepped on her frozen feet and witnessed the shattering of her home and country and the separation of her relatives amidst the sounds of gold and iron and cries.
The felt tent in Huanglong Mansion was bitterly cold, and the wind and sand had worn away her splendor, but not the obsession in her heart. As the biological mother of Zhao Gou, the new emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, she became a bargaining chip in the hands of the Kingdom of Jin, struggling to balance humiliation and survival. In order to protect the orphans of the royal family such as Roufu Diji, she had to bow her head to the King of Jin Wanyan Zongxian. Between the heater inside the wolfskin tent and the wind and snow outside the tent, she endured the heartbreaking pain of having her dignity trampled on.
The years passed by with the holes in the felt tent and the crackle of the bonfire. She gave birth to a child with Wanyan Zongxian. The bond of blood added more burden to the already torn soul. On the one hand, there is the lingering dream of the motherland, and on the other hand, there is the distant expectation for Zhao Gou, the son of Jiangnan, to "receive his mother and return to the court"; on the other hand, there is the warm breath of the young son in his arms, and the complex emotions of living together in a bitter cold place.
When the peace messenger from the south brought hope of returning home, she fell into a deeper struggle: going back meant saying goodbye to her own flesh and blood, and facing her motherland's scrutiny of this humiliating past; staying behind meant she would continue to be trapped in the prison and forever separated from her homeland. The wind and snow outside the felt tent are still howling, but Webster's fate has long been closely intertwined with the rise and fall of two dynasties and the concerns of two bloodlines...
