In the twenty-third year of the Republic of China, Nanjing. Shen Zhaoning, an associate professor at Central University who returned from studying in England, fell in love with Cheng Youheng, a talented girl from Jinling Women's University. He appeared on her campus every day for two years, but she pushed him away time and time again. It turns out that Cheng Youheng was already engaged - the debt owed by her father had mortgaged her to the Zhou family, a wealthy businessman in Hangzhou, and the eldest son of the Zhou family was famous for his tyranny.
After the Battle of Songhu, Cheng Youheng's ribs were broken, his left ear was beaten, and he was imprisoned in the backyard of Zhou's family. Shen Zhaoning gave up moving westward and rushed to Hangzhou through the war to rescue her from the cage. They fled all the way from the canal to the guerrilla camp in the mountains of southern Anhui, relying on each other amidst artillery fire and hunger. He proposed to her under the big locust tree in the mountain village. There was no phoenix crown or harem, only a piece of red cloth, a handful of wild flowers and the sound of firecrackers set off by a bayonet.
In the autumn of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, they finally set out on their way home to see the Wutong Road at Jinling Women's University - the road where he first met her, with fallen leaves rustling all over the ground.
Purpose: In the torrent of the times, to write about a woman's dignity that breaks the shackles of fate with her bruised body; in a war-torn place, to witness the infatuation of a love that transcends life and death, regardless of whether it is worth it or not.