Lin Yunzhou was born in the ancient town of Linshui, and grew up with Shen Yan since childhood. They lived in a house filled with mist and rain, and half a volume of poems and books. The two agreed that when the clouds rise next year, they will leave the secluded small town together and go to a distant place.
The world suddenly changed and war swept across the south of the Yangtze River. Shen Yan was forced to go to the frontier to join the army. Before leaving, he left a jade pendant engraved with cloud patterns and promised to return in three years.
Lin Yunzhou waited patiently at the old house, watching the clouds on the river every year, and wrote down all his thoughts in a book, named "Cloud Notes". When the three-year period expired, all that was waiting for her was a death certificate. She refused to believe it and embarked on a journey of thousands of miles to find him alone.
The wind and sand of the Gobi deserted her shoes and socks, and refugees in troubled times took away their belongings. She traveled through deserted cities, ancient shipwrecks, and abandoned secret passages. She saw countless nameless bones and was in desperate situations several times. She always held on to the jade pendant and refused to let go.
After several years of wandering, she met Shen Yan by chance at an abandoned inn on the border. He was still alive, but he had already married someone else, and there was nothing but strangeness and alienation in his eyes.
All the promises made back then were invalidated, and the clouds in the sky were still there, but there was no one to watch the clouds side by side. Lin Yunzhou returned to the ancient town alone, burned all the notes filled with his thoughts, and spent the rest of his life alone facing the floating clouds on the river, lonely year after year, with no hope anymore
Purpose: To write about the involuntary regrets in troubled times. People with deep love cannot withstand the impermanence of the world after all. To explore parting, missing and obsession, to cherish every time we meet, to let go of fruitless obsessions, and to reconcile with the broken past.