[Sickly Nobleman x Golden Shard Butterfly Spirit]
Shen Hui is a "walking coffin." Hanshan's Listening Pine Courtyard is to be his final grave.
No medicine can help him. He spends his days coughing up blood, even his breath tasting of rust. Everyone says he won't live past this winter.
Then one day, the wind and snow atop the cliff cut like knives. With death in his heart, he uses a bloodstained fingertip to pluck one last song: "The Cranes Sing in the Far Marshes."
The music splits the sky, and a golden glimmer comes hurtling through the wind!
A fearless butterfly braves the gale that can snap giant trees, dancing wildly to the sound of his zither. Her wings shimmer like molten gold, and every beat seems to burn away her life.
She says his music is the only warm sun that can pierce the icy depths of the underworld.
He says she is the only light in this frozen wasteland.
When freezing rain seals off the mountain and life flickers like a candle in the wind:
He coughs up blood and faints, murmuring, "Zither... little butterfly..." as they hurriedly carry him down the mountain.
She breaks through the ice and takes human form, following that fading trail of deathly cold. Barefoot, she steps into the deep snow to seek him.
But all she finds is
An empty home, a snapped string cloaked in dust. A trail of footprints marked with gold in the snow points blindly toward the boundless world.
One soul-burning song summons the butterfly, yet in the endless snow he loses the one he knew.
A frail body plays its final song; a spirit butterfly comes to keep their promise, reborn.
Is this bond, forged in the face of death, the beginning of salvation or a deeper descent into confusion?
Theme: Reunited after tribulation, they journey together toward new life
