Unemployed, facing eviction, and newly single, Lin Zhou's life hits rock bottom overnight.
He takes refuge in an abandoned old house to drink away his troubles, only to wake in the middle of the night and find a little girl in a High Tang-style ruqun who has appeared out of nowhere.
Clutching a white jade pendant and wearing a green jade pendant around her neck, she speaks in a tiny, lisping voice. Eyes wide with fear, all she can manage is a timid, “Big brudder, Xi Zi's scared.”
She doesn't know what electric lights are or how to use a toilet. She calls the television a little black box and plays with white sugar as if it were sand. With her childish air from the ancient Tang Dynasty, she seems completely out of place in the modern world. The police are no help, and softhearted Lin Zhou can only take in the poor little girl whose family is a mystery.
Sweet and well-behaved as she is, the child suffers from a chronic illness. One night, a sudden asthma attack leaves her gasping for breath, her lips turning purple, her life hanging by a thread. With barely any money to his name, Lin Zhou rushes out for medicine and watches over her all night, pulling her back from the brink of death. From then on, little Xizi clings to him as her one source of comfort.
When the two jade pendants meet, their light resonates, allowing glimpses of the past and whispers to travel across a thousand years. From the child's scattered words, Lin Zhou gradually discovers the truth: she comes from the prosperous Tang Dynasty during the Zhenguan era. She is little Xizi, the beloved daughter of Li Shimin and Empress Zhangsun, a Tang princess destined to die young after a life of misfortune.
She longs for her mother and father and remembers her sister, who died young. Her innocent words carry the tragic fate recorded in the history books, filling Lin Zhou with sorrow.
When little Xizi reaches out to take his hand and softly pleads, “Big brudder, come home with Xi Zi,” the two jade pendants ring together and time and space turn upside down.
A down-on-his-luck young man from the modern city and a thousand-year-old little princess tumble together into the prosperous city of Chang'an.
Their journey of mutual redemption across the ages begins. In this life, he will defy fate to keep her safe year after year, preserve her innocence and youth, and rewrite the ending recorded in the history books.
