Ice and fire mingle, right and wrong depend on each other; desire and fate collide. Like men and women in early spring, adrift in an endless sea of desire, yearning for sex and love, cash and court rank. Will the result be stirring and moving, yet helplessly resigned? Or will everything go as they wish, leaving them utterly triumphant? Wit and strength, spirit and flesh, fate and fortune: one tide rises, another sun sets and moon returns.
The story spans more than half a century, from □□ and □□ through the Reform and Opening Up. The love between Da Hong and Hua Mei is its central thread, interwoven with more than ten subplots. Over a hundred major and minor characters appear as time and place shift.
Da Hong and Ju Xiang grew up together, but Ju Xiang quietly left. He is devoted to one person, yet suitors crowd around him. He truly loves Hua Mei, but Hua Mei is targeted and relentlessly pursued by the likes of Wang Yanqing, and they fight to the death. Da Hong rides the tide of change into business, taking over a state-owned farming and breeding operation. But disasters, natural and man-made, follow one after another. When he reaches the end of his rope and tigers roar and wolves howl around him, he still holds fast to his original principles and insists on taking the right path, struggling on. Hua Mei, driven by wholehearted love, ventures alone into the world, battling with both courage and cunning.
Yang Anbang and Zhang Hanwen get what they deserve. Dong Xiu, Aunt Yao, Zhao Wenxiong, and others inspire pity and sorrow. Jiang Lilian is undone by her own cleverness, hurting herself and others. Shu Chun and others become crazed with obsession over what they want, while Zhang Dalin and others thrive in love, business, and politics. Guo Xingbang and others take bribes and break the law, indulging in debauchery until they bring about their own downfall.
Da Hong and Hua Mei endure humiliation and hardship, shedding blood and tears. At last, the empire in their hearts takes shape, and the darling of the times, the Wanfang Group, is born.
