Lord Xie, Please Behave Yourself!

Blurb: In the third month of spring, peach blossoms drift through ten miles of woodland. Xie Lian jolts awake from a blood-soaked nightmare at Lingxu Terrace, returned to his youth. Beneath the flowering trees, he encounters Yun Xiu, dressed in a crimson jacket. So frail the wind could break him, Yun Xiu coughs as if he might fall apart. The physician declares he will not live to twenty. The young man makes a promise with his spear in hand: once he has mastered the arts of war, he will prepare a carriage lined with soft furs and take Yun Xiu through Jiangnan’s misty rain, then north to watch the snow, and return with him to the peach grove on the Shangsi Festival to fulfill their promise to meet again. Behind the vermilion gates of the Duke of An’s residence, the chill runs deep. A fortune-teller’s prophecy pins the charge of bringing ruin to his kin on Xie Lian. Though they share the same blood, his elder brother Xie Zheng has every opportunity to study poetry and master horsemanship and archery, while their father, Xie Changyi, keeps Xie Lian under layer upon layer of restrictions. He is destined to spend his life as an idle ornament in the family estate. An unexpected accident erupts from an argument, and rage burns away the bond between father and son. After being beaten and disowned, Xie Lian flees alone into the night, gravely wounded and near death, and heads a thousand miles away for the southern frontier. A blue-cloth carriage rolls down the long road, and the Shangsi Festival quietly passes. In the end, he breaks his promise beneath the peach trees. He will never know if the frail young man waited beneath the blossoms for a whole day, then went home filled with sorrow. [Reader’s Guide] 1. Updates daily, in the evening or after midnight. 2. A ruthless, battle-hardened general as the pursuer x a sickly, perceptive young gentleman as the pursued. Theme: What does not defeat you will ultimately make you stronger.