Passing Under Heaven

A child is born to the concubine of an army officer serving at the Last Fort Under Heaven. The army officer goes missing, and the concubine is persuaded that her daughter will be better off in a farmer's family where she will be brought up until she is old enough to marry the son. When the concubine commits suicide by swallowing gold, the farmer rejects the girl as unlucky. She is adopted by Scholar Yu and taken to live in the capital, Chang'an. The child becomes a brilliant poet and calligrapher, achieving social success and - this is where the fiction begins to be loosely based on fact - becoming the concubine of a young government official, Li Zian. But jealousy destroys the relationship and Lily retreats to the Taoist Monastery of Boundless Contentment, until she takes up with the reprobate but well-connected poet Wen Tingyun and travels around China.