Winter Reverie • Story

Tsai Wen-chi was the beautiful daughter of the famous Han dynasty scholar, Tsai Yung. Toward the end of the Eastern Han era, amid the chaotic political upheavals and foreign invasions, she was taken hostage by the barbarian king. There, in an alien land, she languished for twelve years, until the warlord Chou negotiated her release. Upon her return, Wen-chi found her father had passed away, leaving reams of essays and manuscripts in disarray. Thereupon she made the vow that she would not rest until his work was finished. The end result was a compilation of over four hundred volumes that took years to complete, and became a Chinese literary classic.