People ask: Knowing the dynasty is doomed, knowing that resisting is futile, why fight to the very last moment?
Lin Yan says, “So the people can have enough to eat, and children can have books to read.”
Lu Jingchen says, “So the northern frontier remains unbroken, and the Han people’s backbone never bends.”
Shen Qingci says, “So a healer’s compassion never falters, and the lives of the people can be protected.”
A Ce says, “For what my master taught me: that we are descendants of Yan and Huang, all part of China.”
They are the rebels who refused to bow their heads in the dynasty’s final days.
The top scholar laid down his brush and joined the army. The frontier commander would rather die than surrender. The healer gave her life, and the young man burned himself to protect his country.
They became sworn brothers, pledged their lives to one another, and stood shoulder to shoulder amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood, hoping to fight their way to peace in this troubled world.
But a pure heart has never been in control of a chaotic age.
Their sworn eldest brother drank the poisoned wine bestowed by the emperor. The love of his life died beneath the city gate he had defended. The boy he had raised was blown to pieces like snow in the wind. In the end, he was left alone, his name carved on a stele among those who died defending the city tower, sharing the city’s fate to the bitter end. The cultural heritage they had risked their lives to protect was burned to ashes by the new dynasty. The people they had defended with their lives had long since forgotten their names. The homeland they had held fast to until death eventually changed hands, and the dynasty fell.
A hundred-year dream passed, leaving only the wind and snow at Yanmen, unchanged year after year.
It turned out the cruelest thing was never dying on the battlefield. It was giving your life for a golden age that would ultimately erase even the fact that you had ever existed.
