In the third month of spring, the rain lets up over Yongjing.
Pei Qingshang, a rhythm physician at Qingyin Hall, is invited to the Northern Training Grounds to assess the drums and gongs and set the military cadence for the capital garrison. After listening to the three camps perform their formations from a hundred paces away, she writes just five characters on a sheet of paper: Fifteen beats too soon.
Nineteen-year-old General Huo runs the formation again and discovers she's right.
And so the beautiful older woman he had only glanced at a couple of times suddenly becomes someone truly worth getting to know.
Before leaving, Huo Zhaoye plucks a peach blossom, still wet from the rain, and gives it to her. Their fingertips touch: one hand is burning hot, the other ice-cold.
It seems like nothing more than an ordinary springtime encounter.
No one knows that before they ever stand face to face, an ancient zither has already carried their names across three hundred years of mountains and rivers.
In a nutshell: With the subtle love of someone from three hundred years in the future, and the competitive spirit of an equally peerless military genius, she comes to find the general from three hundred years ago.
[Her body travels through time, ancient-to-ancient]
Theme: Nothing is more dangerous than that one look from a kindred spirit.
