At Bailu Zhou’s riverside, spring runs deep in Tai City.

Once again, it’s the season of apricot rain and pear blossoms in Jiangnan, with bees and butterflies drawn to fragrant blooms.

Gao Luoshen sits quietly in the meditation chamber of the Taoist temple where she has lived alone for ten years.

“Leave. Flee as far as you can.”

She speaks to the several Taoist nuns who have yet to depart before her.

Before her words fade, accompanied by urgent footsteps, a guard rushes in from beyond the threshold.

“Madam! The Jie people have broken through the city gates! Word is that Her Majesty the Empress Dowager was captured on her southern retreat! Rong Kang is leading Jie soldiers this way, fearing harm to Madam! If Madam doesn’t leave now, it will be too late!”

Everyone knows the Jie army’s brutal nature—wherever they breach a Nanchao city, they invariably burn, kill, rape, and plunder without restraint. The current Jie emperor is utterly inhuman, said to have once cooked captured Nanchao women together with deer meat, commanding his dinner guests to distinguish the flavors for amusement.

The Taoist nuns were already panicked, but upon hearing this, their faces turn ashen as they weep bitterly. Several timid ones can barely remain standing, their entire bodies trembling violently.

Gao Luoshen closes her eyes.

Candlelight flickers, casting her lone, thin figure in Taoist robes upon the wall, adding to the desolation.

Shenzhou has fallen to foreign rule. Barbarian iron hooves repeatedly trample the once-prosperous lands of the two former capitals.

Under the eager expectations of northern compatriots, the southern people launched northern expeditions time and again, yet the outcomes were either fruitless returns or mid-campaign defeats, success turning to failure at the crucial moment.

When dreams of reclaiming the ancestral homeland were utterly shattered, all the southern people could do was rely on the Yangtze River’s natural barrier to maintain precarious peace in Jiangzuo, clinging to their last vestige of superiority as the legitimate heirs of Chinese civilization, gazing forlornly toward the two capitals while savoring remnants of past glory through ceremonial dress and ritual systems.

But today, even this is impossible.

The natural barrier once thought impregnable cannot halt the Jie people’s southern invasion.

That Rong Kang was once a local warlord of Badong. After losing his wife several years ago, drawn by Gao Shi Luoshen’s reputation and relying on his military strength that the court heavily depended upon, he audaciously sought her hand in marriage.

How could the noble Gao family possibly marry into Rong Kang, a mere regional military commander?

Moreover, Gao Luoshen had entered the Taoist order ten years prior, vowing never to remarry in this lifetime.

Her cousin Empress Gao, knowing she owed her for that old matter from ten years ago, dared not force the issue.

When Rong Kang’s marriage proposal failed, he felt his dignity wounded and harbored resentment. The following year he raised rebellion, but after being suppressed, he fled north to join the Jie people, where he gained favor.

In this massive Jie southern invasion, Rong Kang serves as vanguard, leading Jie soldiers to break cities as they advance south, showing off his might and committing countless atrocities.

“I won’t leave. You go.”

Gao Luoshen slowly opens her eyes and speaks again.

Her expression remains calm.

“Madam, take care…”

The Taoist nuns bow and kowtow to her one by one. After rising, they support each other, weeping as they turn and hurriedly depart.

The vast Ziyun Temple soon holds only Gao Luoshen alone.

Gao Luoshen steps out the temple’s back gate, walking alone to the riverside where she stands upon a towering rock, gazing at the vast river surface that divides the nine provinces between north and south.

Silver moon suspended in space, river wind howling, her robes dance wildly as if she might ride the wind away.

On this late spring night, upon the river islet, the distant spring river tide approaches like a silver thread connecting with the moon.

She knows this moonlit spring river tide outside Tai City all too well.

On countless nights when she awakened from nightmares and could no longer sleep, her only companion was the nightly sound of river tides, night after night, month after month, year after year.

Yet tonight, this river tide sounds like the earth-shaking drum beats of Jie cavalry advancing south.

Gao Luoshen seems to hear the terrified cries of Taoist nuns who couldn’t escape in time and the wild laughter and roars of Jie soldiers in the distance.

Everything is ending.

Nanchao’s refined culture, family glory, and everything connected to her will all conclude tonight.

The Jie soldiers behind her draw ever closer, their voices carried on the wind becoming clearly audible.

Gao Luoshen doesn’t look back.

River water swirls around her gradually floating skirts like a blooming flower, her bamboo-thin body pushed by the current, swaying in the river wind.

She lifts her gaze, watching the river tide surging toward her, step by step walking forward, wading toward the river’s heart.

From Gao Luoshen’s earliest memories, her father often brought her to Shitou City by the riverside.

Between towering green mountains stood high city walls. Shitou City, located west of the imperial city beside the Yangtze River, maintained heavy garrison troops year-round to protect the capital.

Father always held her small hand, gazing across the river toward the distant north, watching for long moments.

Northern expedition to reclaim lost territory and restore the Han ancestral homeland was father’s greatest lifelong aspiration.

It’s said that on the eve of her birth, father dreamed of returning to Eastern Capital Luoyang. In his dream, taking illusion for reality, he wandered along both banks of the Luo River, singing freely in wild joy, only to awaken to deeper melancholy.

Luoshen had guessed that when father gave her such a name, perhaps it contained elements of mourning the past while contemplating the present, thoughts running deep with distant longing.

Father probably never imagined she would end her life flowing away with water at her final moment.

Just like her name. In fate’s mysterious workings, perhaps this was indeed a form of prophetic destiny.

The midnight river tide, like a giant dragon under moonlight, roars with soul-stirring fury.

It roars, pressing closer and closer toward her, as if about to devour her completely.

Yet she feels no fear whatsoever.

In this lifetime, too many people she loved had departed before her.

In the fifteenth year of Xingping, when she was sixteen, she first tasted the bitterness of death’s separation. That year, her cousin Gao Huan, fifteen years old and dear to her as a true brother, tragically died in battle while suppressing Prince Linchuan’s royal rebellion.

Then, in the second year of Taikang, when she was eighteen, she lost her newly-wed husband Lu Jianzhi.

In the third year of Taikang, while the newly-widowed she still grieved the loss of her beloved, heaven mercilessly took her father and mother as well. That year, when rebellion erupted in the Three Wu regions and rebel soldiers besieged the city, mother was trapped inside. Father died trying to rescue mother, both perishing together.

More than ten years later, just recently, her uncle and cousin who had been the final pillars supporting Dayu’s realm and the Gao family’s standing also died in battle defending Xiangyang City in Jiangbei against the advancing southern Jie army.

Before Gao Luoshen’s eyes, these many scenes flashed like fleeting shadows.

Finally, another face suddenly appeared in her mind.

It was a man’s face, blood staining his heroic features.

Fresh blood continued dripping from his eye sockets.

Drop by drop, it splashed upon her forehead, spattering across her delicate flower-like face.

At that moment, he had pinned her to the ground. Their faces were so close they could sense each other’s breath.

His eyes dripped blood as they stared fixedly at her, pupils filled with boundless rage and deep hatred.

He seemed like a severely wounded beast in its death throes, ready to tear her apart and devour her completely in the next instant.

Yet in the end, she still survived, living until today.

While he died upon her body just like that.

All along, Gao Luoshen had wanted to erase that blood-dripping man’s face from her memory.

Best to forget it completely, without a trace.

Yet throughout these ten years, on countless nights when she awoke from nightmares and tossed sleeplessly to the distant sound of river tides, Gao Luoshen found herself unable to control the urge to relive that scene again and again.

That wedding night filled with conspiracy and blood.

Many years later, even until today, she still couldn’t understand.

In his final moment before death, whether his failure to break her neck was due to lack of strength or because he chose to spare her?

She had asked herself repeatedly whether, if time could reverse and everything could begin anew, she would still accept such an arrangement.

She had also wondered whether, if that man named Li Mu hadn’t died ten years ago and were still alive today, what would Jiangzuo’s situation be now?

Would these northern Jie people still have the opportunity to breach Jiankang as they have today, capturing Dayu’s Empress Dowager and Emperor?

“Catch her and bring her back—there’s a heavy reward!”

Harsh voices accompanied by rushing footsteps approached from behind.

Jie soldiers had reached the riverside, shouting loudly as some waded into the water pursuing her.

A wave of river tide surged toward her. She closed her eyes and threw herself forward to meet it.

Her entire being, from head to toe, was instantly swallowed by the river tide, vanishing without trace.

The river tide no longer raged as it had moments before, rolling up layers of white foam that completely surrounded her.

She floated within, drifting gently as if receiving the most tender care from a mother’s womb.

In her final breath, she caught the faint fishy scent unique to spring river tides.

This smell reminded her once more of the final breath left by that man who died upon her body years ago.

It was the scent of blood.

Memory called her back one last time to that Jiangnan late spring from ten years past.

That year, she was twenty-five, in the prime of her beauty, yet already widowed for seven years.

The Gao family ranked among Jiangzuo’s highest noble houses, maintaining aristocratic standards.

Gao Luoshen’s father Gao Qiao lived his life renowned for pure integrity and refined scholarship, serving successively as General in-Chief, General Zhengguo, Head of State Affairs, rising to Minister of Works, enfeoffed as County Duke, his reputation filling the realm.

Her mother Xiao Yongjia was Emperor Xingping’s elder sister, titled Eldest Princess Qinghe.

Beyond family background, Gao Luoshen lived up to her name—her talent and beauty stirred all of Jiankang. For seven years, marriage proposals came in endless streams, almost all from outstanding young men of noble families matching the Gao clan’s status.

But Gao Luoshen’s heart remained still as water, living in deep seclusion.

Until one day, she was summoned to the imperial palace.

Her peaceful life was shattered from that moment.