In the twenty-third year of the reign of peace in the Yong Dynasty, the plum blossoms in the back garden of Xie Mansion were in full bloom.
That year, Xie Zhenyue was five years old. She was surrounded by twenty-nine young men in bright clothes and angry horses. They said they would protect her for the rest of their lives and that they would see all the flowers of Chang'an in this prosperous age together.
The days at that time were as sweet as honey, and they thought that as long as they held hands, they could go to eternity.
Until the fire that filled the sky at the age of twenty burned through all the lies and innocence.
Later, Xie Zhenyue realized that the cruelest thing in the world was not separation between life and death, but watching those living souls shatter one by one in front of her in the most tragic way.
The most optimistic people have their backs broken and die the most miserably;
The most proud people kneel in the mud, kowtow and beg for mercy, losing all face;
The brightest person sinks into ruthlessness and is eventually bitten by his own knife;
The gentlest man, driven mad, laughed and jumped off a cliff;
The most timid person blocked the fatal blade for her at the last moment;
And the man who said he would carry her on his back for the rest of his life died in her arms, still clutching a jade pendant that he had not given away.
She is the brightest and strongest protagonist, but in the end she lives half-dead, like a walking zombie.
She was the youngest. She finally stood in front of thirty tombstones and whispered to the mountains of grass: "Now, I am older than you all."
It's been a long burn.
It started with the first snow when I was five years old and ended with the bloody night after I was twenty.
There is no miracle, no redemption, just thirty knives, thirty ways to die, and a long night that is destined to be extinguished.
Intent: This is a story about thirty young men paving the way for the only heroine at the expense of their youth and life; it also uses extreme destruction to show readers "how mortals use their broken souls to piece together the most dazzling light in front of the meat grinder of fate."
