May the Fragrance of Plum Blossoms Bring My Wish to Fruition

Fragrance of Plum Blossoms Fulfilled is a sweeping novel that weaves together personal love, the fires of war and national crisis, and the fates of three generations. Chen Chunhua, a ninety-year-old veteran of the War of Resistance Against Japan, lost his discharge papers and spent half his life unable to prove that he was an old Eighth Route Army soldier. He harbored a long-buried yearning: to return to Qidu Town by Taihu Lake in Suzhou and find Zhou Lemei, the girl he had once promised to stay with beneath a plum tree. He sets off on a journey to fulfill that dream through the lower reaches of Jiangnan with his wife, Shi Zao, who has endured in silence for half her life, and his great-granddaughter, Chen Leru. Drawing on a veteran’s fortitude, he overcomes the troubles of everyday life and uncovers the past buried beneath the flames of war. In 1933, Rehe fell, and fourteen-year-old Chen Chunhua fled to the watery Jiangnan countryside. Beneath a plum tree, he and Zhou Lemei fell in love and vowed to drive out the Japanese invaders and spend their lives together. When the War of Resistance broke out, he said farewell to his beloved and went to the front with his closest friend. They fought desperately in northwestern Shanxi, where he witnessed his comrades die heroically. After being rescued from a serious wound, he lost contact with Lemei, and they missed their chance to reunite. He spent the rest of his life with Shi Zao, the woman who had saved him. Zhou Lemei kept her promise and never married. After losing her family in the flames of war, she raised an orphan alone. By the shores of Taihu Lake, she planted plum trees and kept a diary. She even changed her name to “Chen Meisheng,” taking his surname and joining it to her own name, and lived out her days in loneliness. The unexpected romance between their descendants brings this love story, bound by life and death, to light. Clutching the diary, Chen Chunhua weeps bitterly and pours out half a lifetime of remorse at Lemei’s grave. After they meet again in a vision, he finally lets go of his obsession and understands the preciousness of having someone by his side in the present. From separation amid war to peace in old age, from waiting with youthful devotion to finding release with white hair, this is a love etched into the heart amid troubled times, and the story of a generation of Chinese people’s suffering for their country and their steadfast devotion. All those long years of waiting and deep-seated longing finally find fulfillment beside Taihu Lake, where the plum blossoms bloom. May the land and its people find peace, and may it light the way for every soul that still believes in hope through the darkest hours.