Story

During the Southern and Northern Dynasties (南北朝时期, nán běi cháo shí qī, 420 - 589), the Chén Dynasty (陈, 557 - 589) found its strength waning. On top of that, to the north, the Suí Dynasty (随, 581 - 617) had been newly established, and they lived in constant threat of invasion.

Seeing which way the winds were blowing, the emperor's daughter 乐昌公主 (Lè Chāng Gōngzhǔ) and her husband 徐德言 (Xú Dé Yán) decided to make contingency plans. The princess was both beautiful and intelligent, and they feared that if the dynasty were to fall, she would be forced into the household of a wealthy and powerful invading family. They wanted an object that could show they were destined to meet again in this lifetime, and so they split one of the princess's mirrors in half. 徐德言 would take one half, and she would take the other, and if they got separated, she would go sell her half on the streets on the day of the Lantern Festival. On that same day, he would go looking in the market for her half of the mirror. If the parts of the mirror found each other, the couple would then know that their partner still lived and held affection for them.

Eventually, the events that they feared came to fruition, and the Chén Dynasty was conquered by the Suí. 乐昌 was forced to become the concubine of the Suí general 杨素 (Yáng Sù), and 徐德言 found himself destitute and struggling. Despite this, the two of them desperately longed for their respective partners, and they kept to their plan.

On the day of the Lantern Festival, 乐昌 ordered a servant to go to the market and sell her broken half of the mirror for an exorbitant price. No one could believe that a broken mirror warranted such a high asking cost, and as a result, no one attempted to buy it.

As planned, 徐德言 also went to the market on that day, and he stumbled across the servant selling the broken half of the mirror. He invited the servant back to his quarters, and there, the two pieces of the mirror became one once more. He fed the servant a meal and explained his story, and the servant informed 徐德言 of his wife's whereabouts. He grew greatly saddened by the realization that he would never be able to get her back, and he wrote a poem to her on her half of the broken mirror.

Later, the servant returned to 乐昌 and explained what had transpired. She cried continuously for several days, eventually attracting the attention of 杨素. He asked her what had happened, and she told him. He realized that he would never win her affections, and he grew deeply saddened. He asked her if she wanted to return to her husband. She replied that she did, and so he dispatched a servant to fetch her husband so that the coupled could be reunited.

The servant found 乐昌's husband and brought him back to 杨素's household, and the fated couple was finally reunited. 杨素 threw a banquet in their honor and gave them some money to support themselves, and the couple lived together happily for the rest of their lives