3 h 52 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 3 h 52 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does love owe to family when the heart and honour pull in different directions?
Snow, Moon, and Plum Blossom, credited to Chen Lang, belongs to a Chinese tradition of stories about romance, duty and family fortune. Love is never simply private here. Parents’ wishes, social rank and neighbours’ expectations frame the question of what people owe to those they love.
Its title brings together three images long associated in Chinese poetry with purity, constancy and quiet courage in hard seasons. Against that background, the novel invites reflection on honour and obligation: keeping a promise, repaying kindness and holding to principle when hardship makes those choices costly.
What you’ll discover
- Love amid obligation Explore the tension between private feeling and the claims of family, rank and honour.
- A household at the centre Consider a tradition where parents, children, elders and servants share a world of mutual duties.
- Courage in hard seasons Reflect on the quiet strength of keeping your word when principle carries a cost.
- The turns of fortune Follow questions of fate, chance and character that shape family life across generations.
- Three enduring images Discover the poetic associations of snow, moon and plum blossom with purity, constancy and courage.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy sworn brotherhood, warm family scenes, ghost stories with a moral, brave women and clever campaigns against pirates will find all of them here.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A scholar flees with his mother
- An immortal wife leaves a daughter behind
- A greedy uncle sells the orphan girl
- A refuge among friends in Shandong
- A girl is stolen on the river
- Snow falls into the dark
- Sworn brothers and an opened grave
- Loyalty matters more than rank
- Good and bad deeds come back
- A storyteller's voice and loose threads
Who’s who
- Cen XiuA young scholar and swordsman of Nanjing who flees an enemy official with his mother and later helps bring his friends together.
- He Xiaomei (Little Plum)Cen Xiu's cousin, daughter of a mortal father and an immortal mother, who can read a person's character at a glance.
- Xu Xuejie (Snow)A teacher's gentle, clever daughter, tricked away from home and sold, who wants nothing more than to see her father again.
- Wang Yue'e (Moon)The daughter of the kind official Wang Yi, who treats Little Plum as a sister and keeps a loving, steady heart.
- Jiang ShiqiA giant of a man in Shandong, skilled in the martial arts, who gives the Cens shelter and helps them follow their destiny.
- Liu DianA generous young martial student from Jiangxi who gives to strangers, brings his father home and rises in the army.
- Yin YongA strong, loyal servant's son, brother to Snow, who longs to avenge a wrong and earn a place as an officer.
- Hua QiuyingA brave, quick-witted girl who survives a city under pirate attack and later rides to war beside her husband.
Formats and delivery
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- Read by Lucas Linden, complete. It opens once the recording is online.
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- The key ideas in about 15 minutes, to read today.
- Paperback
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- Hardcover
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- Large print hardcover
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Neve, luna e fiore di susino
by Chen Lang
One girl is sold by her great-uncle; another returns from a grave as pirates ravage the Ming coast.
Challenging2–5 hours to readItaliano
Excellent
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In short
Imagine a girl of thirteen, tricked into a sedan chair by her own great-uncle and sold for thirty taels of silver. Imagine another, drugged on a river boat, passed from hand to hand, and finally buried in a public graveyard.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A scholar flees with his mother
The novel opens with Cen Xiu, a young scholar of seventeen from Nanjing. He loves the sword and the bow as much as his books. He tells himself that a real man must be both a writer and a fighter. His father is dead, so he lives with his mother and an old servant couple.
Trouble comes from his grandfather's past. The old man once caught a magistrate named Hou Zijie taking bribes, and Hou kept his grudge for years. Now Hou returns as inspector of the whole region and spreads a story of an unpaid debt. Cen Xiu's teacher sends a secret warning and advises him to travel until the inspector's term ends.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 2 h 30 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Chen, Lang. Snow, Moon, and Plum Blossom. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/snow-moon-and-plum-blossom.
Chen, L. (2026). Snow, moon, and plum blossom. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/snow-moon-and-plum-blossom
Chen, Lang. Snow, Moon, and Plum Blossom. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/snow-moon-and-plum-blossom.
@book{chen2026snow,
author = {Chen, Lang},
title = {Snow, Moon, and Plum Blossom},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/snow-moon-and-plum-blossom}
}
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What is Snow, Moon, and Plum Blossom about?
It follows the scholar Cen Xiu and the girls Snow and Little Plum, who are driven apart by greed and an enemy official. Years later, loyal friends bring them together, while Cen Xiu and his sworn companions fight pirates on the Ming coast.
Who are Snow, Moon, and Plum in the title?
They are three young women. Snow is Xu Xuejie, Moon is Wang Yue'e, and Plum is He Xiaomei, called Little Plum. Each endures a different trial, and their lives become tied to one another and to Cen Xiu.
Is it a true story, and when was it written?
The characters are invented, but the setting is real. The raids by Japanese and Chinese sea bandits belong to the 1550s under the Jiajing emperor. The author, Chen Lang, dated his preface 1775 under the Qing dynasty.
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