In the seventeenth year of the Republic of China, Shanghai was hazy with mist and rain, and the neon lights of the ten-mile foreign market were shining.
Ye Zhenzhen is the jewel in the palm of the Ye family in the south of the Yangtze River. She has been immersed in poetry and calligraphy since she was a child. She is good at meticulous painting and calligraphy, and her hairpin flowers are beautiful in regular script. She used "Zhen" as her pen name and serialized prose novels in newspapers. Her writing was gentle but her character was hidden, and her elegance quietly blossomed in the literary world.
She originally just wanted to live a stable life with her pen and ink, but she met Chen Huayang in a fateful way at a literati gathering.
Chen Huayang was born as a general and was a young general with a large number of troops and a powerful figure in Shanghai. He was wearing a military uniform and was stern and upright. He was maneuvering around in troubled times. He was accustomed to the smoke and intrigues, and his heart seemed to be frozen. Only when he saw the misty Jiangnan and the clear eyebrows and eyes described by Ye Zhenzhen, he was quietly moved.
He opened the door to her heart with a letter, and she returned his tenderness with a painting.
In troubled times, he protected her writing and ink, and blocked the chaos for her; she understood his iron-blooded ambitions for his family and country, and used words to soothe him from the fatigue of war. From the villas in the concession to the old alleys of Jiangnan, from the company of poetry and wine to late-night conversations, a piece of elegance touches two hearts, and the love between children is blended into the turbulent years.
But the current situation was turbulent, factions were fighting, and the war spread to the city in an instant. Chen Huayang had the heavy responsibility of defending his country and had to go to the front line, with his life and death uncertain; Ye Zhenzhen stuck to the literary world and used the pen as a weapon to write about the character of the troubled times and the expectations of the world, condensing her thoughts and concerns into a piece of pen and ink.
A marriage contract brings about lovesickness in two places; a half-life war brings a lifetime of concern.
When the mountains and rivers have gone through calamities and prosperity has faded away, the ink on the paper carrying elegance and affection has not yet dried. But can they overcome the chaos of life and death, and after the smoke clears, they can renew their elegance and maintain the stability of the world together?
Purpose: Love in the Republic of China