The Stone of Love (Original Version)

Zhang Li, Ma Jia Lining: She was once a rising star in the entertainment world. Though she had no stunning beauty, she worked hard to pursue her dream. Just as that dream seemed within reach, an accident took her life, and she found herself in the Great Qing Dynasty, an era that held “a woman without talent is virtuous” as an unquestionable truth. Zhang Li became Ma Jia Lining, blessed with a face that could make anyone fall in love at first sight. All her hard work was thus wasted, and she had to start over from scratch. But the royal nobles saw only her exquisite beauty. No one saw that beneath her delicate exterior was a free spirit. Shi Lan, Lan Lan: Though her flashes of cleverness and wit often astonished people, she was a complete failure as a woman of the nobility. She would never try to win her husband's heart the way a clever woman would. But they did not understand: it wasn't that she didn't know how. She simply disdained it. She could use every means at her disposal to save someone, and scheme to her heart's content in a wager. But when it came to the person she loved, she would neither use tricks nor schemes to compete for his favor. She believed that love requiring such tactics was not worth cherishing. She would not resort to them, not even a little. So she loved without reservation and expressed her joy and sorrow without restraint. She wanted the person she loved to accept all of her, flaws and virtues alike, because that was her true self. She was so stubborn that she refused to change herself, even slightly, to fit into this world, though even the smallest change might have won her a splendor others could never attain in a lifetime... Sometimes she was muddleheaded and naive only because she lived beneath a sky held up by the person she loved. She trusted him, so she showed him her willful side. But when she discovered that the sky she had trusted with all her heart had never really existed, or perhaps had never appeared at all, and was only an illusion in her heart, nothing more than a dream, she saw through it all in an instant. True love is so elusive, and growing tired of the old and seeking the new is human nature. These two souls from the twentieth century, after all their partings and reunions, what will become of their love and hatred? Theme: