Jing Lan
▷ Identity: Young general → Marquis with power over the court
▷ Personality: A steadfast rock, cold on the outside and warm within. Decisive and ruthless on the battlefield, awkward yet devoted in love. His love is a silent blade, cutting away every obstacle in her path.
Yu Zhao (Su Yu / Shen Xi)
▷ Identity: Top courtesan at the Fuxiang Pavilion → Young Master Su of Jiangnan → The general’s principal wife
▷ Personality: A flame wrapped in a shell of ice. Arrogant and sharp-tongued on the surface, sensitive and vulnerable within. From accepting her fate to seeing clearly, she ultimately grows strong enough to stand beside the one she loves.
On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the young general Jing Lan was struck by a branch of osmanthus. He looked up to see Yu Zhao, dressed in white with dark hair, smiling as she called him “the biggest fool in the world.”
After that, he saved three months’ pay just to see Yu Zhao, only to receive cold stares and ridicule. When he offered everything he had to buy her freedom, all she said was, “Save it to buy yourself a cheap coffin.”
Three years later, Jing Lan returned from a bloody victory over the enemy camp to discover that the jade-like beauty who had once been beyond the reach of a fortune could now be seen for just five coins. He brought her back to the general’s residence and tried, in his clumsy way, to warm her frozen body: sweet medicinal dishes, a custom pipa, a Jiangnan retreat, even defying an imperial decree to refuse another marriage. Through a long journey of healing and waiting, Yu Zhao finally understood: someone had swallowed every hurt he had caused her, then turned around and built her a shelter from the storm, saying softly, “It’s warmer in here.”
“You gave me a dream of Jiangnan; I’ll give you the rest of my life by your side.”
From the Fuxiang Pavilion to the general’s residence, from five coins to an imperial marriage decree
This is an extraordinary tale of redemption, with two hearts finding their way to each other over ten years.
Like holding a cup of longan tea that slowly warms on a winter’s night: its first taste is the bitterness of fate, its aftertaste the sweetness of time, and in the end its warmth seeps into your very bones.
