Night Journey Song

Night Journey Song is a long wuxia romance serialized by web novelist Ziwei Liunian on Jinjiang Literature City, beginning on August 13, 2008 and published in August 2009 by China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing House in two volumes totaling 480 pages. The story begins in the Western Regions at Tianshan: the white-robed girl Pianxian (also known as Jiaye) has been imprisoned in the Tianshan Sect since childhood; to take revenge she tests poison on herself and trains in forbidden arts, and though the years wear on, her face never changes. She is the sect's most feared assassin. The spirited youth Xie Yunshu was originally the third son of the Xie family, renowned throughout Jiangnan; captured by the demonic sect and subjected to every torment, he bends his pride and becomes a slave to survive, given the name "Shuying" and becoming the shadow guard ever at Jiaye's side. Amid blades and killing fields they support each other, face life and death together, and come to harbor feelings neither can put into words. Seven years later they finally escape the Tianshan cage and ride south: Jiaye, by chance, becomes the sworn sister of the northern martial arts magnate Jun Suiyu and is lavished with affection; Xie Yunshu returns to his old Jiangnan home and takes up again the identity of a great clan's young master. Yet the rules of Tianshan and Jiangnan are utterly different—one is a marginal figure raised in a wolf-pack society, the other a returned son at ease with clan propriety—and so the two who once trusted each other with their lives are parted at opposite ends of the earth, gazing at each other from afar. Four more years pass; Xie Yunshu searches all of the Central Plains and travels as far as Xijing, scouring heaven and earth, only to find that one person again. The work is roughly divided into the Tianshan (Yuanshan) arc, the Jiangnan arc, the Diexie arc, and the Biyi arc, interweaving jianghu bloodshed with tender romance, and is regarded as one of the representative "female-led" wuxia romance novels; in 2017 a screen adaptation was announced.