The heroine is kind, but cold at heart.
She saved his life, stole his heart, then left without a word.
Ten years later, they meet again. He is an aloof general commanding a mighty army, while she is an impoverished, down-on-her-luck physician.
He looks at her coldly. She gives an awkward smile. “General, are you short a military physician? I just need food and a place to stay.”
In the fifteenth year of Yuanxi under the Great Yan, Su Qinghe was nineteen, the youngest female physician in the Imperial Medical Academy. She was sent to the frontier after being pushed aside.
There, she found a young soldier, battered and bruised, among a pile of corpses. She treated his wounds and protected him when others bullied him.
His name was Xiao Yun, a son born to a concubine in the Xiao family, as insignificant as a speck of dust.
She stayed by his side, saving him and caring for him.
On the night before they parted, she said, “Wait for me to come back.”
He said, “I’ll wait for you.”
But she never came back.
She stayed in the capital and married Xu Wenzheng, who could help her reenter the palace, study the writings of the greatest scholars in the land, and complete her medical book. They were husband and wife in name only, each getting what they needed, and never sharing a marital relationship.
She was waiting for the day she finished writing her book.
What he got instead was news that she had married someone else.
Ten years later, the book was finished, the Xu family fell, and she was implicated and dismissed from office, leaving the capital in disgrace.
Passing through Shuofang, she was robbed of every last coin she had.
She crouched on the street counting her copper coins. After thinking it over, she could only try her luck at the military camp north of the city. She had heard they were short on military physicians, provided food and lodging, and didn’t care about a person’s background.
The moment she walked through the camp gates, she saw him.
He sat in the central command tent, clad in black armor.
When he saw her, the corners of his mouth slowly lifted in a smile, but it never reached his eyes.
“Divine Physician Su?” he said. “What is it? Can’t you make it in the capital anymore?”
As it turned out, he took a brutal revenge on her.
