Guangling Melody

He is the foremost of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, the most outstanding talent of his age. Wherever he goes, people marvel at his noble bearing and graceful elegance. His charm is like the bright moon in the deep of night, and his virtue like a cool breeze through the pines.

She is a princess of the Cao Wei imperial clan, the beloved youngest daughter of Prince Pei. Raised in seclusion, she is renowned throughout the land for her delicate beauty, exquisite clothes, and luminous complexion. Her grace is like the drooping willows of early spring, and her fragility like a lotus in the summer rain.

Had they never met, he might have spent his life wandering freely among mountains and streams, as carefree as a cloud or a wild crane.

Had they never met, she would surely have been married off to a powerful noble, trapped behind the deep walls of a marquis's mansion.

On the Shangsi Festival in the fourth year of the Zhengshi era, he had just turned twenty, and she was in the bloom of youth. At a palace banquet that night, he flouted courtly etiquette and strolled away into a thicket of green bamboo. Gloomy and restless, she happened to wander toward the banks of the Luo River. The great divide between their stations did not stop them from falling for each other at first sight, or from sharing a moment of music and exchanging tokens. Yet the pair who should have been a match made in heaven were helplessly swept, step by step, into the turbulent final years of Wei...

She tugged until the silk robe tore, but could not make him stay. From then on, the Guangling Melody was heard no more.

Was this fate, decided long ago, or a conspiracy planned well in advance?...