At the third watch, moonlight spills over the long street. A single lantern lit like a river of stars brings two innocent hearts to light.
Shen Zhiyue, the youngest daughter of the Grand Tutor's household, has pale, delicate features and brows like distant mountains veiled in mist. She is as cool and aloof as frost and snow beyond a window, yet amid the crowds at the Lantern Festival, her attention is captured by a figure in a moon-white robe. The scent of Hui ink on the young man's sleeve and the words “River of Stars” on his lantern become a secret longing she dares not voice through countless long nights to come.
Xie Xingci, a poor scholar lodging at Yunqi Temple to study, dreams of a brilliant future but cannot forget the girl he glimpsed at the festival. She stood where the lantern light faded, her plain robes whiter than snow. Her eyes held a gentle softness touched with reserve, and the cool brush of their fingertips became his tenderest thought amid the stacks of books and papers.
A springtime pilgrimage brings them together again. The gulf between their families stretches like a river of stars, and society's judgment forms an invisible barrier. Yet the threads of fate have already begun to entwine beneath the moonlight. When a cool and reserved young lady meets a gentle scholar, and a fleeting glimpse turns into a life spent side by side, can they overcome every obstacle and turn the spark of that first meeting beneath the moon into a love story that lasts a lifetime?
