Romance in the Rain: A Neon-Lit Chronicle of Turbulent Times

Shanghai, 1941. Beneath the neon lights of the Paramount Ballroom, the undercurrents of the times and the choices of individuals lie hidden.

Lu Yiping is no longer the sharp-tongued, rebellious eldest daughter of the Lu family. Now she's the Paramount's most popular singer, “White Rose,” making a living through song in a world at war while building walls around her heart. Fifth Master Qin remains a tycoon in Shanghai's entertainment industry, outwardly cold and imposing, but secretly supporting an underground resistance network. When He Shuhuan returns to Shanghai, guilt-ridden and hoping to win her back, and the Lu family is brought to ruin by the war, Yiping chooses national duty over the tangled ties of her birth family.

From the Paramount stage to an underground intelligence station, from isolated Shanghai to the wartime capital of Chongqing, from the trial-marriage turmoil to finding love amid the flames of war, Yiping and Fifth Master Qin's relationship deepens step by step. They are not only partners who find warmth in each other during turbulent times, but comrades fighting side by side. Their love, spanning an age gap of 24 years and crossing class barriers, is tempered into steel amid Japanese invasion, family opposition, career crises, and momentous choices.

This million-word epic chronicles a woman's growth. It continues the characters' legacy from Romance in the Rain, but reinterprets love, independence, and devotion to country and family against a grander historical backdrop. When the neon lights go dark and the smoke of war clears, what remains in the depths of time are two souls who illuminated one another and grew together amid chaos, and the full arc of a woman who moves from seeking personal independence to taking on social responsibility.

In the world of Romance in the Rain, they forged another path, a more difficult one, but one closer to truth and freedom.