A sweet romance with a satisfying payoff: Su Yanqing, a physician’s orphan, leaves home with her books on her back, hoping to find a place to settle down, but accidentally wanders into a remote mountain village. On a rainy night, bandits are causing trouble, and she clutches half a medical text while hiding in a ruined temple. There she meets Yan Zhu, a hunter returning with his bow. His blade cleaves through the curtain of rain, and their meeting opens a new chapter in her unsettled life.
She is a scholar with yellowed medical texts spread across her desk, using needles and herbs to cure the villagers’ chills. He is a mountain wanderer with a hunting bow on his shoulder, protecting her with his broad blade and powerful crossbow. The cinnabar in her medicine pouch mingles with mountain mist, while the feathers on his bow catch the morning dew. She teaches him to recognize the patterns of medicinal herbs; he teaches her to read the mountain wind. Gradually, the warmth of everyday life in this remote village embraces their days and nights.
But the scholar carries secrets left behind by her father, and the mountains cannot escape the undercurrents of the martial world. When the turmoil of the “Deer Hunt” reaches the mountains and old grudges entangle themselves with her medical records, the arrows in his quiver must eventually point toward the chaos beyond the hills.
Will the scholar abandon her medical texts to brave the turmoil, or will the mighty hunter lower his blade and return to the mountains?
A healing ancient-style romance set in the mountains, this is a tale of the bond between a scholar and a mighty hunter. She makes compassion her foundation, and he makes protection his shield. In a corner of a chaotic age, they turn mountain mist, the scent of herbs, and deep affection into the warmth of a lifetime.
It's really great. Especially the overall narrative and scene descriptions.