Snow Falls, and I Cannot See You

In the seventeenth year of the Republic, war raged across the land. Shanghai's glittering foreign concessions were alive with song and revelry every night, yet none of it could warm her heart.

She was Wen Zhiyi, the orphaned daughter of a once-prosperous family. To survive, she entered the famed military governor's residence as a maid.

He was Lu Chengyu, a cold and ruthless man who commanded a powerful army. Everyone revered him, everyone feared him, yet for her alone, he made exceptions, indulging her and drawing closer step by step.

She thought theirs was a chance encounter in troubled times, a tenderness that had come late, a person she could entrust her life to.

She offered him her whole heart, just as it was.

But she did not know that all his tenderness, all his exceptions, all the softness in his eyes,

were part of a carefully plotted deception.

He approached her, cherished her, indulged her,

only to use her in exchange for intelligence, a way out, and the safety of the woman he loved.

The day the truth was revealed, rain poured from the sky.

He personally pushed her into danger, his voice as cold as ice:

"Wen Zhiyi, from beginning to end, you were nothing but a pawn."

Her heart turned to ash, and she threw herself into the river.

Everyone said she was dead, her body never found.

Years later, he pacified the land and ruled Shanghai, with no one by his side.

Every night, he lit a single lonely lamp and sat in an empty room until dawn.

They said Military Governor Lu was waiting for someone who would never return.

One cold lamp, one solitary shadow.

At last, he had won the world, but forever lost the girl whose eyes had once held only him.

A love misplaced, love and hate ending in emptiness.

From then on, the long nights held nothing but a cold lamp, illuminating the loneliness of all his remaining years.

Theme: Romance in the Republican era