At winter's end, a great scholar with students across the land is executed along with his entire clan over a poem. That year, Liang Qiu is ten years old. She enters the palace to the anguished cries behind her.
The Liang family has no descendants left. The world gains an unremarkable eunuch named A Fu.
The wind and snow in the Forbidden City are so fierce she cannot see the way ahead. For a time, she thinks she will die in that winter.
As she lies at death's door, she hears a voice, shrill as a vengeful ghost crawling out of hell. To her, it is a thread of hope.
"What kind of death-seeking ghost are you? Don't block my way."
A man looks down at her. Liang Qiu opens her eyes and gazes at him for a long while, then reaches out and grabs the bloodstained hem of his robe.
Lu Rao has emerged from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. He has done everything he should have done, and everything he shouldn't have.
He put a puppet emperor on the throne. On the day of the palace coup, a row of bloody heads hung in the great hall. Calling him a demon would not be an exaggeration.
But he has done good deeds, too. One winter, he reached out his hand to a young palace maid.
That one gesture lasted a lifetime. To the very end, he sheltered her from the wind and snow.
He had long been a piece of rotting flesh, concerned only with enjoying his glory while alive, never mind the misery after death. But she gave him a glimpse of spring.
They never made any vows of deep devotion to each other. She only promised him one thing.
"Lu Rao, don't worry. I'll live longer than you, and I won't let your body be left in the wilderness."
Because of those words, she stayed by his side all the way.
At the end of the Chengping era, people remember only two great events. The eunuch Lu Rao, who had plagued the court, was finally executed.
The other was that the daughter of the great scholar Liang was still alive, and had cleared the Liang family's name. For a time, the entire Liang family was honored for its spotless reputation.
But on the day the Liang family daughter left the palace, she carried the corpse of a disgraced eunuch on her back. Everyone was astonished.
Dressed in white mourning clothes as snow falls all around her, she has just lost the man she loves. She is taking him home.
A cruel, sharp-tongued eunuch vs. a steadfast, awkward palace maid
Theme: Spring comes again.
