This opera consists of three plot lines developed from Wang Xi-Zhi’s “Timely Clearly after Snowfall”, a priceless work of Chinese calligraphy presently in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The story describes how Zhang Rung and Wang Xi-Zhi, two good longtime friends through the good relations of their families, moved to the South of the Yangzi River down from the North at a time when China was under attack by several tribes living on the borderlands.  In their youth, they vowed to recover the land they had lost and someday go back to their hometown.  They gradually grew older.  On the very eve of the day when Zhang Rung had prepared to launch a strike in the North, he received a letter from Wang His-Zhi, “Timely Clearly after Snowfall”.  Zhang Rung sensed that Wang no longer possessed the will to fight and return to the North.  It now seemed that Wang simply wanted to go on living and eventually die in the South.  Zhang strongly opposed such an idea and decided that he would give Wang the dressing down he deserved upon his victorious return from the North, but he did not anticipate his own demise in the battle.
After his death, the restless soul of Zhang Rung floated through the various historical epochs in his search for the true meaning of the letter.  His soul traveled to the Zhaoling Mausoleum of the Tang Emperor Taizhong, to a merchant ship on the Qin-Huai River in the Southern Sung Dynasty, to the San-xi Hall of Emperor Qianlung of the Qing Dynasty, and eventually made his way to the National Palace Museum in Taipei.  Throughout his travels, he heard numerous stories about how individuals managed to live meaningful lives and find their positions and identities in times of war and chaos.
Another story line elaborates the saying, “Blood relatives as brothers can fight like a wolf and a tiger,” by setting the story in a virtual time and space.  The mother of the Qiu family has two sons, Qiu Ping and Qui An.  She expected to live a peaceful life after going through the hardship of raising the two boys, but during a time of chaos, the two brothers enlisted in two opposing armies, one of the Kingdom of Tigers, and the other of the Kingdom of Wolves.  The two brothers were forced to take up arms against each other and finally died in the war.
The third plot line tells the story of two men who moved to Taiwan from Mainland China in 1949.  Jiang Cheng-Zhang was drafted by the army against his will.  Following the army all the way to Taiwan, he was forced to separate from his family. Gao Man-Qing escaped to Taiwan with her husband, but soon her husband had to return to the battlefield and died in a bloody battle.
The lines in “Timely Clearly after Snowfall” imply the common feeling about life in chaotic times and the painful diasporic experience.  The three stories cross and connect with each other by Wang Xi-Zhi’s “Timely Clearly after Snowfall”.