Spring Returns to the Old Alley

In Republican-era Nancheng, Shen Yanqing, the daughter of a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, defies convention to become the city’s first female Western doctor. Amid the ravages of war, she and Gu Yanzhi, the young master of a martial arts academy, pledge their lives to each other. But when a conspiracy strikes, Gu Yanzhi leaves without a word, earning the name of a “traitor” in order to protect Shen Yanqing and her family. They are separated, each going their own way. Ten years later, Shen Yanqing is a medical expert who has returned from overseas and been appointed head of the emergency department at a top-tier hospital. She thinks her heart has long since settled, until a familiar figure appears in the emergency room: Gu Yanzhi, the man she hates most and cannot let go of. He is now the hospital’s youngest orthopedic specialist, as well as the head of a martial arts society on the verge of bankruptcy. Old wounds remain unhealed, and new troubles arise. Gu Yanzhi’s old injury can only be cured with the lost golden-needle technique of the Shen family, while a mysterious organization using martial arts for illegal activities draws him into its schemes. As the long-buried truth gradually comes to light, Shen Yanqing discovers that the “heartless” young man of ten years ago endured a decade of loneliness to ensure her lifelong safety. On the operating table, they are doctors fighting side by side; in the martial arts academy, they are opponents trading blows. As the precision of Western medicine meets the power of martial arts, and a buried romance collides with an unsolved conspiracy, the two stubborn souls finally understand: the hardest wounds to heal are never physical, but those of a heart afraid to love again. Spring deepens in the old lanes. This time, he won’t let go.