Lament of the Fallen: Lantern Light on Old Friends

After Yangzhou fell, Lin Pianpian was swept up in the northbound army and the world of the powerful. She had once been a courtesan at the Twenty-Four Bridges. From childhood, people had put a price on her and chosen her, and she had long since grown used to trading her own life for the chance to save someone else's. The one person she could never truly let go of was the scholar who had offered her a little light in her darkest hour: Fang Zhiyou. But Fang Zhiyou never came. His madness, amnesia, and beastly vision still plagued him. Su Lianyan's death kept him trapped in the past, while Lin Pianpian's quiet sacrifices were gradually forgotten. It was only years later, through old accounts, scraps of paper, and others' few passing words, that he pieced together the woman he had once seen but never truly understood. One heads north. One searches for someone. One learns not to give herself away anymore. One learns to admit that even his kindness concealed arrogance. When they finally meet again, what awaits them is not a long-delayed happy ending, but old debts, illness, war, revenge, and an even harder question: If a person's body and life finally belong to her, should she still trade them for something? How can two people trapped by the past learn to see each other again amid the chaos of war, and learn to believe that: A person need not die for their life to have been worthwhile. They can simply live out their lives, well.