In the spring of 1937, Shen Zhaotang performed The Peony Pavilion at Zhaoyue Tower and met Gu Yunzheng.
He was the cold-faced major feared by everyone in Beiping, and an intelligence operative who moved through the darkness.
He never sent her flowers or wrote her love letters. He only had someone bring her a bowl of pear soup after every performance.
Shen Zhaotang thought him coldhearted. Only later did she learn that he had hidden all his tenderness in secrets he could never tell.
They once made a promise beneath a crabapple tree.
He said, “When the crabapples bloom, I’ll come back and marry you.”
But in those turbulent times, people were not allowed to reunite.
The crabapples bloomed year after year, but the one who had left never returned.
Many years later, the white-haired Shen Zhaotang stepped onto the old stage again and received a long-delayed letter.
It read, “Zhaotang, when the crabapples bloomed, I should have come back.”
Only then did she understand that Gu Yunzheng had never let her down.
He had simply died on his way back to marry her.
