Blue Skies is a novel by Qiong Yao written in the 1970s, first published by Crown Publishing in Taiwan in September 1974. The title comes from a line in Fan Zhongyan's Song dynasty ci poem "Su Mu Zhe: Nostalgia"—"Blue skies, yellow leaves on the ground, autumn colors ripple on, cold mist green on the waves"—and the story is set in 1970s Taiwanese society. It begins with Xiao Yiyun, a recent college graduate who takes a substitute teaching position and notices a girl in her class named Yu Bihan, whose life has been unfortunate: Bihan lost her father in childhood, her mother remarried and then died, and she was abused and tormented by her stepmother. Yiyun's heart goes out to her, and she leaves the girl her contact information. A few months later, Yiyun marries her long-time boyfriend Gao Haotian, and their married life is sweet. Just then, Bihan, with nowhere else to turn, calls for help, and Yiyun gets her admitted to a hospital. Learning that Bihan's stepfather can neither pay the medical bills nor take her home, Yiyun and Haotian bring her into their home. Haotian's parents adopt Bihan as their goddaughter, and Haotian arranges a secretarial job for her at his company; as they spend time together, Haotian begins to notice this gentle, long-suffering girl more and more. Meanwhile, Yiyun's brother soon has a child after his marriage, which makes Yiyun and Haotian anxious as well. They go to the hospital for tests, and the result is that Yiyun's fallopian tubes are blocked and she cannot conceive. To continue the Gao family line, Yiyun and her mother-in-law agree on a "surrogate motherhood" arrangement: Bihan will bear a child for the Gao family. Bihan, who harbors feelings for Haotian, agrees; Haotian initially refuses, but under the arrangement of Yiyun and his mother, he eventually has relations with Bihan, and afterward feelings gradually develop between them. Unable to bear it, Yiyun asks Bihan to leave. Bihan eventually gives birth to Haotian's child, names him "Tianli," and the debts and passions among the three can no longer be untangled. Through this love triangle, the novel asks a sharp question: can love be shared by two women? It examines the traditional idea of continuing the family line alongside modern emotional needs, portraying women's struggles and pain between family roles and selfhood in a particular era. The plot is full of Qiong Yao's trademark intense conflict and lush lyricism; it was adapted into a film of the same name in 1976.
《碧云天》在琼瑶的众多作品中，常被读者视为「虐恋」与伦理冲突都走到极致的一部。它没有把爱情写成单纯的甜蜜，而是把一段婚姻推到传宗接代这一现实命题面前：当妻子无法生育、丈夫的家族又殷切盼望子嗣时，爱情还能不能保持完整？依云、皓天、碧菡三人之间没有纯粹的反角，每个人都在善意与私心之间摇摆，也因此让读者难以简单地判断对错。 本书的另一层看点，是琼瑶对女性处境的细腻体察。依云受过高等教育，却在婚姻压力下做出让她自己都痛苦的决定；碧菡一生都在被安排、被施舍，连爱都成了报恩的一部分。她们的痛苦并非只来自爱情，也来自那个时代对女性角色的规定。 长江文艺出版社2007年版（「琼瑶31全集」系列）沿用较通行的简体排印本，篇幅紧凑，305页，适合作为了解琼瑶中期创作的一本代表作。读它时不妨暂时放下今天的价值判断，去看作者如何在浓烈的情感书写中，把一个时代的婚姻观与女性困境摊开在读者面前。
Founded in Wuhan in 1955, Yangtze River Literature and Art Publishing House is a literary publisher under Hubei Changjiang Publishing and Media Group. Public information is limited, so the following focuses on the publishing directions reflected in the books in our database. The press publishes modern and contemporary Chinese literature, classical literary studies, translated foreign literature and educational works. Its catalog includes Chen Yinke's Studies on the Origins of Sui and Tang Institutions and On Tang Political History and The Unofficial Biography of Liu Rushi, Lao She's Camel Xiangzi and Four Generations Under One Roof, and Selected Essays of Lu Xun, as well as translations such as Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country and educational writings by Sukhomlinsky. Its publishing character lies in balancing literary classics with scholarly works, with attention to textual editing and the accumulation of major authors' works; its author resources span leading modern writers, historians and foreign authors.
