Tao River Is a Dream

The story is set in Lintao, Gansu Province at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China. The Tao River passes through the city. On one side is the old toast system that has been followed for thousands of years, and on the other side is the new ideological trend spreading from the west to the east. Legend has it that there is a "bordering lotus soul" hidden deep in the Taoshui River. If lovers trust each other sincerely, their souls will turn into the lotus in the water after death. However, if they betray, they will be dragged into the mud by water ghosts and never be reincarnated. The male protagonist, Lin Mobai, is a student of Lanzhou New Style School. He returned to his hometown due to his family's misfortune and opened a small shop repairing ancient books by the Taoshu River. He is taciturn and has a crescent-shaped scar on his left index finger (left when he was a child to save a child who fell into the water). His grandfather was once an aide to the Tusi Mansion in Taozhou. There is a fragment of a scroll recording the secrets of the Tusi Mansion in Taozhou. He can understand the special sound of the Tao River (like human language) when the tide rises. The heroine Shen Qinglan is the widowed daughter-in-law of the Shen family, a wealthy businessman in Taozhou. Her husband died suddenly three months after their marriage. She is still required to observe mourning for three years. She lives in seclusion and is good at playing the ancestral seven-stringed zither. A rare purple-spotted peony is planted in front of the window. The cause of her husband's death was doubtful (she had a dispute with the chieftain's son before his death). She secretly hid the account books left by her husband and discovered that the Shen family had ulterior transactions with the chieftain's mansion. Her sleeves were often embroidered with a "Bingdilian" pattern that only she and Lin Mobai knew. Lin Mobai returned to his hometown to open an ancient book shop, and found in the shop a book from the Qing Dynasty's "Taozhou Chronicles". There was half a broken page with a lotus painting on it, which matched the pattern on his jade pendant. Shen Qinglan came to the shop in search of the ancient books her husband had borrowed during his lifetime. When their eyes met, Mo Bai heard a strange whimpering sound coming from Taoshui, and Qinglan's guzheng strings suddenly trembled on their own. From then on began a love tragedy of life and death that was passed down to future generations.