There is a magnolia tree in the courtyard. I planted it in the year of my death, and now it is as tall as a canopy. From the summer of 1937 to the spring of 1949, Shen Xiaoyue, a girl from a small town in the south of the Yangtze River, and Gu Huaisheng, a soldier, had a life-or-death love that spanned twelve years. From the first meeting at the Battle of Songhu to the reunion on the isolated island in Shanghai; from the uncertainty of life and death in the Battle of Yunnan and Burma to the final farewell at the Battle of Huaihai - she waited for him for a full twelve years, and what she waited for was a white magnolia tree that was cut in half by cannonballs but sprouted new branches in the spring, and a daughter whose features looked like his.
