In the thirteenth year of God's blessing, peach blossoms filled the Shen Garden. Seven-year-old Shen Zhaoning stuffed a candy into the palm of Li Yan, not knowing that this moment would be the beginning of all the joys and sorrows in the future.
That year, Shen Zhaoxing, a homeless boy with a bruise on his face, broke into Shen's house and had a home from then on; Li Yan, who was as silent as water, learned to laugh; Shen's eldest son Zhaoyuan aspired to take the imperial examination; flower girl A Li was taken in and had a place to stay. Five teenagers hooked up under the fireworks and made a promise: no change for a hundred years.
But a hundred years is too long. Party strife fell apart, the family collapsed, the father died and the mother separated, each going his own way. Some people died fighting in the North, some died deliberately, some went crazy and waited, some died of illness in a foreign land, and some died alone. Zhao Ning was left alone, guarding the fallen leaves in the courtyard, waiting for people who would never come back.
Many years later, the snow fell on Changling, and the seven tombs were silent. A young man's voice could be heard vaguely in the wind——
"How about we watch the fireworks together next year?"
The snow fell silently.
