Snow in Gusu's Courtyard, Flames of War on the Liaoyuan Plains

Born in the third year of Longqing, Jiang Wenyuan lost both parents at the age of six. He wandered to Gusu and sought refuge with the Shen family, where he first met four-year-old Shen Qingwan. At seventeen, an orphan, he married into the Shen clan. The couple had a son and a daughter. Jiang Wenyuan was accomplished in both letters and arms, and skilled in strategy. He revitalized the Shen family’s northern and southern trade routes, treated people with utmost sincerity, regarded the elder Shens as his own parents, and loved Shen Qingwan deeply. Everyone in Gusu praised him as an ideal husband. Until the twenty-first year of Wanli, when cold rain fell without end over Gusu. Jiang Wenyuan finally crossed the vermilion gates of the Shen residence with his concubine, Liu Ruyan, and his illegitimate son, Jiang Tianyou. The promise made in their youth, when they had pledged to stay together, shattered beneath the endless rain. Shen Qingwan calmly exposed all his high-minded excuses. Turmoil in the inner quarters of Jiangnan rose and fell in wave after wave. A young child in the household died in an accident, and the elder Shens passed away from grief and distress. The warmth they had once shared was worn away by suspicion and upheaval. At that time, the Ming Empire was beset by storms. War continued on the northern frontier as troops were sent to aid Korea. The palace examinations of 1593 sparked factional strife at court, and crushing taxes filled the countryside with refugees. The love and hate between a man and a woman were ultimately swallowed by the twilight of a dynasty on the verge of collapse. With her heart turned cold, Shen Qingwan returned to the Shen estate in the countryside. There, she rescued Xiao Yuan, a young man from a Liaodong military family, who was gravely wounded and lying in a ruined temple. Amid the refugees of a turbulent age, she also adopted Shen Chen, an orphan with nowhere to turn. Xiao Yuan split apart his family’s heirloom jade pendant, a pair of matching warm-jade pieces, and gave one half to her as a token. He promised to return to Jiangnan and be with her once the northern frontier was pacified. Though mountains and seas separated them thereafter, Shen Qingwan remained in her homeland, devoting her fortune to supporting the front lines and taking in the helpless victims of the times. Her devotion to her family and country never wavered. Snow fell year after year in the Jiangnan courtyard, while the fires of war burned across the Liaoyuan plains season after season. Shen Qingwan kept the jade and waited all her life, quietly watching thirty-four years of youth slip away. Twelve years later, Xiao Yuan set out to honor his promise in Jiangnan. At thirty-nine, he was mortally wounded on the northern frontier. As he lay dying in service to his country, he swore to her that in their next life he would travel all across Jiangnan, fulfill his promise, and meet her again. On one side was the man from her past in Gusu, her childhood sweetheart. They had stayed together since youth, yet he ultimately broke his promise and hurt her. On the other was a commander on the frontier, a bond formed at a single meeting, for whom she spent a lifetime waiting. Her childhood sweetheart was her tribulation; the frontier commander was her longing. The imperial histories recorded thousands of miles of flames and war, but not this love and heartbreak, spanning Jiangnan and Liaodong, swallowed by a turbulent age. Theme: There will always be someone who makes you feel that life isn’t worth living, but one day there will also be someone who understands every hardship you’ve endured, crosses a sea of people to embrace you, and never leaves again.