Moonlight Falls Across Six Cities

Chen Yan, a New Year painting artist, spent much of the year traveling to find inspiration. Everyone in his circle said he was carefree and free-spirited. Over four years, he visited the snowy plains of Mohe, the ancient towns of southern Yunnan, the fishing ports of the South China Sea, and the old streets of Chang'an, capturing beautiful mountains, rivers, and moonlit nights in his paintings.

No one knew that this long journey had never been about finding inspiration for his art.

At seventeen, in Gusu, he met Su Wan and quietly sketched her profile by the river in a rainy alley. Before either could confess their feelings, disaster struck. Word came from others that Su Wan had died in an accident.

Chen Yan believed it. He shut himself away in the snowy plains of Mohe, put down his brush for two years, and let his heart turn to ashes. Then, amid the crowds of an ancient town in southern Yunnan, he caught a fleeting glimpse of someone who looked exactly like the Su Wan in his memories.

In that instant, his dead heart began to beat again.

With his painting board on his back, he continued onward, watching the tides day after day at a fishing port on the South China Sea and searching for old acquaintances on the streets of Chang'an, piecing together the truth that had been deliberately hidden all those years ago. It turned out that the so-called death was nothing but a lie someone had made up.

In other people's eyes, he traveled everywhere, carefree and romantic. But Chen Yan knew that every landscape was merely the backdrop to his search for her.

After four years on the road, on a full-moon night in Jiangcheng, he was painting by the river when he looked up. The moonlight he had painted countless times fell upon the person who had been missing for years.