Eighteen Years: I'll Never Break My Promise for the Rest of My Life

Eighteen Years, A Lifetime of Keeping My Promise Eighteen years ago, on the day Lu Chenzhou went bankrupt, he knocked over the “Homeward Bound” incense his wife, Shen Nian, had carefully blended by hand. She searched for him in the rain and died in a car accident. She left behind half a burner of cold incense, a song he had written, and their five-year-old daughter. Eighteen years later, he had become the founder of Wangyue, a giant in traditional Chinese fragrance. Every year on the anniversary of her death, he sang the song, “Moon, Moon, I Make a Wish to You”: “Could you lend me a few more years, so I can turn all I owe into all I give…” When foreign companies closed in on Wangyue, a 22-year-old woman named Lin Xiao burst onto the scene. Combining ancient methods with modern technology, she created “cyber Eastern fragrance” and became an overnight sensation. No one knew that she was Shen Nian. At a conference, Lu Chenzhou grabbed her wrist. “What fragrance are you wearing?” She blurted out, “Homeward Bound. Agarwood for the base, borneol to lift it, and finally… a drop of blood to seal the fragrance.” The room fell silent. Only one person in the world knew that method. “Shen Nian, is it you?” “Mr. Lu, you have the wrong person. You no longer deserve to sing that song.” But he had waited eighteen years for this moment. He sang the first half, and she instinctively joined in with the second. He cried. She smiled. “Lu Chenzhou, it’s been eighteen years. Does your promise still stand?” Traditional incense-making, rebirth and redemption, and the passing down of intangible cultural heritage. Eighteen years ago, he shattered her incense burner. Eighteen years later, he would spend the rest of his life rebuilding a hall devoted to the art of incense for her. Eighteen years, a lifetime of keeping my promise. Original theme song, “Moon, Moon, I Make a Wish to You” This novel is told in the style of traditional storytelling, using the art of Chinese storytelling to carry the theme of traditional Chinese culture and intangible cultural heritage.