Meeting You Was Already the Best Luck

In the second year of Jingkang, the city of Bianjing fell. On the day the Jin army breached the walls, Zhao Chengan, a prince of the Song imperial clan, and Shen Qinghe, a palace maid, shared one last embrace amid blood and fire. He promised her a next life, but she only said, "Meeting you was already the best luck." That night, Zhao Chengan died among the rebel soldiers, calling her name until his last breath. Shen Qinghe was taken captive and driven north, where she endured twenty-seven years of humiliation and waiting, keeping faith with a promise no one would ever answer. She waited from youth to white hair, from the palace walls to the desolate frontier. She always believed he would restore the nation and come back for her. Until her final moment, she gazed south and whispered, "Chengan... still not here?" This is a story of a troubled era, of waiting, and of hopelessness. Some died that night; others spent a lifetime trying to reach a reunion that would never come. Life is but thirty thousand days—meeting you was already the best luck.