Ballad of the White Horse

Lan Jing, a young man from the Southern Liang dynasty, travels north to temper himself in the wider world, only to arrive just as the Northern Wei's "Heyin Incident" unfolds. The powerful warlord Erzhu Rong slaughters over two thousand members of the imperial clan and high-ranking officials. Amidst mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, Lan Jing rescues Yuan Yuyi, an orphaned girl of the royal Yuan family, inadvertently pulling himself into the violent vortex of the era's struggle between North and South. As the Northern Wei fractures and the Southern Liang launches its northern expedition, Lan Jing joins the legendary general Chen Qingzhi, marching north with seven thousand white-robed soldiers. Victorious battle after battle, they successfully capture Luoyang for a time. Yet internal strife within the Southern Liang court and the paranoia of Yuan Hao ultimately cause the campaign to collapse. At the Battle of Hanshan, Lan Jing is taken captive and separated from his closest friend, Chen Zhuo. In the Eastern Wei, Gao Cheng plots to usurp the throne and imprisons Lan Jing within his estate. With the covert aid of a Buddhist sculptor known as the "Half-Faced Buddha" and remnants of the Yuan loyalists, Lan Jing assassinates Gao Cheng during a violent thunderstorm. Simultaneously, Hou Jing's rebellion erupts, besieging Taicheng in the Southern Liang and shattering the realm entirely. Through the fires of war, Lan Jing, Chen Zhuo, Yuan Yuyi, and their companions are forced to grow up. By sword and blood, they bear witness to the struggles and convictions of individuals caught in a chaotic age. Schemes play out like chess moves and lives are discarded like grass, yet within the cracks of history, they continue to fight for a single ray of light—for themselves and those they love.