Spring Breeze in the Wilderness

In the winter of 1978, Beijing youth Shen Zhichun was sent to the loess plateau of northern Shaanxi. When she was near death from a high fever, He Ye, the village layabout and barefoot doctor, saved her life. She was a city girl full of book learning but too weak to lift a chicken; he was a country man who had never gone to school but could recite the entire Compendium of Materia Medica. In a barren cave dwelling, they warmed one another: she taught him to read, while he stole eggs for her, painted spring scenes, and shielded her from gossip. Their hearts drew closer and closer, but a misunderstanding tore them apart. When news came that the college entrance exams would be reinstated, she thought he didn't love her and left in the middle of the night. He chased after her, fell, and broke his leg. Wrongfully convicted of hooliganism, he spent three years in prison. All the letters she sent were intercepted, and he made it through the darkness by writing her more than three hundred letters in reply.

By 1985, Shen Zhichun was an executive at a foreign trade company. Returning to her hometown on a business trip, she saw the name He Ye on a list of township enterprises: director of Ye Chun Pharmaceutical Factory. He wore a suit and tie, but walked with a slight limp; she looked glamorous, but suffered from a chronic stomach ailment. The old cave dwelling still stood, and the spring scenes on its walls had faded. At last, the more than three hundred letters he had written came to light. But the times presented them with another challenge: his pharmaceutical factory was facing a foreign takeover, and her company was the prospective buyer. The widow who had falsely accused him returned with her son, while a childhood friend, now a Hong Kong businessman, pursued her.