Snow from the Desert Carries the Moon over Jiangnan

Lu Huaishen, the God of War of the Northern Desert, and Xie Jinglan, the foremost young lord of Jiangnan, were bound years ago by a shocking marriage contract, made before the startled eyes of the powerful and witnessed by all as black was called white.

After years of loving and fighting each other to the bitter end, an imperial decree from the new emperor split the sky: the entire Xie family was exiled, and the marriage was annulled.

Five years later, Lu Huaishen, stripped of his rank, held a black cat as he knocked on the Xie residence’s door, where dead leaves and bare branches had gone un swept in the Jiangnan night rain.

Xie Jinglan opened the door beneath an oil-paper umbrella, a lazy white cat curled in his arms. His cool gaze drifted over through the rain. “General Lu, this is no place for someone who broke his promise.”

Yet that very night, the white cat that was always glued to Xie Jinglan leapt into Lu Huaishen’s arms, still dusted with the sands of the Northern Desert, for the first time of its own accord.