Gu Qideng grew up in the Gu family for sixteen years.
She had three older brothers.
The eldest, Gu Chengyan, was upright and dependable, always ready to light another lamp whenever she was afraid. The second, Gu Changzhou, was sweet-tongued and soft-hearted, and the best at coaxing her into taking bitter medicine. The third, Gu Changchuan, was as cold as stone. He was rarely home, and even when they met, they could barely manage three sentences.
Gu Qideng always thought she was merely an adopted daughter who wasn’t allowed into the Gu family ancestral hall.
Until the night of the Returning Light Ceremony, when the fourth lamp, extinguished outside the ancestral hall for sixteen years, lit up for her.
That night, the Gu family locked the gate to her courtyard. Someone waited at the back gate to kill her. Disguised, she escaped Linjiang and crossed paths with her three brothers, who were searching for her.
The eldest didn’t recognize her.
The second didn’t recognize her.
Only the third stopped where he was and watched her for a long time from across the crowd.
Later, when the pursuers caught up, Gu Changchuan drew his sword in the rain and took an arrow meant for her.
He asked her:
“Do you want to go back to the Gu family, or do you want to live?”
Gu Qideng thought it over.
“I want to know what the Gu family really thinks of me.”
So she returned to the Gu family with a blank paper lantern, half a Returning Gate jade pendant, and a third brother who always said, “I’ll walk you to the gate.”
Only later did she learn the truth.
The Gu family’s century of wealth and privilege had been borrowed. The three eternal lamps in the ancestral hall burned through the lives of the living. And she wasn’t an abandoned child.
She was the one the fourth lamp had awaited for sixteen years, the one meant to return through the gate.
But if she extinguished the lamp, the Gu family would fall, Linjiang would plunge into chaos, and the people she cared about most could lose everything.
When everyone said, “This is for your own good,” Gu Qideng finally decided to ask herself:
Did she want to be kept there?
Or did she want the freedom to leave?
【Reading Guide】
1. An imaginary historical fantasy with family mysteries, an ensemble cast’s growth, and a slow-burn romance
2. The male lead is Gu Changchuan. The heroine and her three older brothers are not related by blood.
3. Keywords: ancestral hall, rites, escape, River of a Hundred Lamps, Soul-Returning Coffin, old friends beneath the lanterns
One-line synopsis: She is not a lamp meant to be extinguished in the ancestral hall. She is the light everyone must return.
Theme: When everyone says, “This is for your own good,” is there anyone willing to ask, “Is this what you want?”
