The Snake Flower Maiden

A green snake twined around a crabapple, claiming three lives, driving a city mad, and binding him for his entire life.

Who embroidered the snake around the crabapple? What happened to her that rainy night? She never says. If you press her, she just smiles, and the smile sends a chill through you.

Only Long Qingjiu dared to want her. He took a knife for her, took the blame for her, and went to prison in her place. On the day he got out, his temples were completely white. The first thing he did was shoulder a hoe and head up the barren slope to plant the first crabapple tree.

No one knew what he was after. And no one knew that the plastic button sewn to her cuff was about to cost a whole group of people their lives. The deputy mayor fell, the blackmailers died, and she was put in handcuffs.

One button, two generations, fifty-three years. Some knelt, turning their guilt into a life of penance; others stood, letting their hatred burn to ash.

Only when ninety-nine crabapple trees bloomed into a sea of rosy clouds did the truth beneath the coffin lid finally see daylight.

The longest sentence in this world is not prison. It is spending a lifetime loving someone you dare not love.

Later, two butterflies, one white and one green, circled the oldest crabapple tree three times. The village elders said: They have come back.

Through countless ages of change, only love is an eternal legend.

Theme: A woman from the bottom of society spends half her life demanding that fate settle its debt, only to discover, when the account is finally cleared, that the one she truly needs to hold accountable is herself. A story of women's struggles and self-rescue, and of where hatred begins and where it ends.