The rain in Jiangnan fell for ten years, yet could not wash away the chill of the four characters "Beloved Wife Xiaoyao" carved into the general's residence's stone stele.
She had once been the brightest daughter of the Shen family. She tied up her hair for him, donned armor, and chased the windswept sands of the northern frontier, placing her sincere heart before him. Back then, Jingtang was a young general in armor on the battlefield, the man who promised in her letters, "When I return, we'll enjoy the springtime in Jiangnan together."
A carefully plotted conspiracy left her forever in that blood-red dusk, turning her into a pain he could not bear to touch. He thought time could heal everything, yet every time the crabapple blossoms opened, he would lose himself before the empty courtyard.
He guarded a vast realm, and the only thing she had left behind: a boy with eyes and brows like hers. He learned to comb the child's hair as she had, and make the sweets she loved, but at some moment or another, the red clothes in his memories would always stab him with pain.
The rain in Jiangnan kept falling, and the peach blossoms at the general's residence bloomed and faded again. Standing before her grave, he held the jade hairpin she had never gotten the chance to wear and whispered, "Xiaoyao, spring has come deep into Jiangnan. I saw it for you."
The greatest pain in this world is not being separated by life and death. It's being alive, yet unable to find a single trace of you, and having no choice but to spend every year with you in my memories.
Theme: When disguises and schemes wrap around the heart layer upon layer, only honesty without armor can truly withstand the ravages of time.
