Jiang Zhaotang thought that knowing how the story ended meant she could save the person she regretted losing most.
Then she met Li Lianhua.
She wanted him to live, but he asked, “And then what?”
Later, she met Xie Zhiyao in a breezy village, clasped the bloodied hand of Xiang Liu amid the flames of war, and waited through a roomful of doubts until Qi Heng came to her.
She had seen them at their most wretched, and become someone they couldn’t bear to let go.
But she couldn’t bring the dead back to life. One wrong word could get someone hurt, and even if she gave everything she had, she might not be able to bring everyone back.
The door out opened for her time and again.
Still, she stayed.
She stayed to grow old with one person, to walk out of the village with another, to bring someone from the battlefield back into the lamplight, and to spend the rest of her life with someone who said, “I do.”
She had meant to change one ending for them.
In the end, she was part of the future they all wanted.
