Amid the bloodshed as the Yongle Emperor Zhu Di purges the remaining Jianwen loyalists, the Lin family of Jinling is implicated and destroyed. Only Lin Yanzhi, an orphaned girl, survives, secretly rescued by her maternal uncle's family, the Liu household.
The once-noble young lady is reduced to a drifting leaf, living under someone else's roof, while Liu Yanzhou, the eldest son of the Liu family, turns this upheaval of fate into the beginning of a lifelong obsession.
Liu Yanzhou has been close to his cousin since childhood. After learning what happened to her, he devotes all his tenderness to her.
He scorns the pursuit of office and wealth, despises the rivalries of the powerful, and sees nothing but Lin Yanzhi's tearful, frightened face.
“I care nothing for royal power or worldly riches. All I want is my dear Yanzhi.”
His words reveal the boy's sincere heart, but also quietly drag the Liu family into a deadly crisis beneath the shadow of imperial power.
In the eighteenth year of Yongle, Lin Yanzhi kneels in the snow, her fingertips digging into the cracks between the paving stones. Blood mingles with snow, much like her shattered heart.
Liu Yanzhou is chained to the rack, the Embroidered Uniform Guard's lashes leaving him bloody and torn.
He looks up and smiles at her. “Yanzhi, don't cry.”
“Why... why...”
Coughing up blood, he speaks as softly as a sigh: “Because... as long as you are alive, then I have truly lived.”
When the executioner's blade falls, she rushes forward like a madwoman, but all she catches is his searing blood.
Later, she sets the Liu residence ablaze and leaps into the Qinhuai River with his ashes in her arms.
As the river swallows her, she finally smiles.
Yanzhou, this time, let me protect you.
