Eighteen Springs is a tragic romance set in 1930s Shanghai. The author is Eileen Chang. 

It was eighteen years since he got to know Manzhen. The realization startled Shijun, who immediately felt he was getting old. His romance with her had only lasted a couple of years, but they seemed to have gone through all the sorrows and joys that life can hold.

Shijun met Manzhen through Shuhui, his pal at the engineering college. Shuhui had graduated earlier than Shijun and started working at a factory in Shanghai. Manzhen was Shuhui's colleague. Shijun joined Shuhui at the factory after his own graduation and the three often ate their meals together.

Shijun gradually started to realize he often blushed before he saw Manzhen and he felt annoyed when Shuhui hinted Manzhen had a dark secret, a skeleton in her cupboard.

She did in fact have a secret and she revealed it later to Shijun.

Her older sister worked as a high-class escort. Her family were deeply ashamed of her job but desperately needed the income it generated. Manzhen's father had passed away early, leaving his wife with six little kids and an aged mother to look after, a burden too heavy for a domesticated housewife. So the load shifted onto the tender shoulders of Manlu, the oldest child in the family. She quit school, stopped her engagement with her fiancee and became a nightclub girl at the age of 16. She was as fresh and pretty as a blooming flower. Her fame as a high-class escort grew quickly.

But as she grew older and her beauty dimmed, she had less and less suitors. In the end, a man named Zhu Hongcai became her last straw.

Manlu finally married him, even though her brother described him as like a cat when he was laughing and like a mouse when he was serious.

Meanwhile Shijun was falling head over heels in love with the pretty, upright and industrious Manzhen, who tried to support her family with all her might after her sister moved out. She even took two extra jobs and kept working after dinner.

Manzhen was also falling in love with the honest and easy to approach Shijun. When she went to work as a tutor in the evening, Shijun waited for her at a nearby coffee shop, so he could escort her home after work. They never seemed to have enough time to spend together because Manzhen was always too busy trying to earn a living. But the minutes they grabbed between the hours of waiting were the happiest moments of their lives.

One day, Manlu fell ill and Manzhen went to visit her. Zhu Hongcai didn't even try to hide his lust for Manzhen. He asked Manlu to try to persuade her sister to marry him and become his third wife, as he already had a second wife in his home village.

Manlu was furious, saying "The cheek on you! That'll never happen! Tell you what, even if she agrees, I won't. – I've sacrificed myself to support her through a good education, to become a girl who can support herself with her own hands. She will never become a concubine for any man. Don't you ever think all the girls from my family will become concubines like me."

But Manlu felt her future was becoming more and more shaky because her beauty was fading and Zhu Hongcai's feelings for her were slipping away with it. After some time, she decided a child would probably help stabilize her position. Unfortunately, doctors had already told her she wouldn't be able to bear any children. Suddenly, she had a horrible idea. "I must be getting crazy!" she told herself.

While Manlu was plotting, Shijun took Manzhen to Nanjing to visit his family. But his family rejected Manzhen because of her sister's background. He told her when they returned to Shanghai and they fought over Manlu. Then Shijun went back home to take care of some family affairs.

By this time, Manlu had formulated a malicious plot against her own sister. She cheated Manzhen into visiting her by pretending to be seriously ill. Then she kept her sister at her house by claiming she needed her care and attention. One night, she let Zhu Hongcai rape Manzhen and lock her up, hoping her sister would accept the reality and agree to be her husband's concubine. She hoped Manzhen's youth and beauty would stop her husband from deserting her.

When Shijun came back to Shanghai, he found Manzhen had disappeared. He looked for her everywhere and his search finally took him to Manlu's residence. Manlu intentionally mislead him into thinking Manzhen had married another man. Believing it to be true, the heart-broken Shijun returned to his home in Nanjing. Not long after, he married a girl his mother had arranged for him.

But both the bride and groom regretted their decision as soon as they were married, because Shijun still loved Manzhen and the girl too, loved another man.

Nonetheless, they lived a decent life - first in Nanjing, then in Shanghai.

While all this was happening, Manzhen gave birth to a baby boy, the son of the evil Zhu Hongcai. She managed to escape from the hospital. She found her common friend with Shijun, Shuhui and learned he had married three days before. All her hope vanished.

A few years later, Manlu finally found Manzhen. Manlu had contracted TB and her days were numbered. She begged Manzhen to marry Zhu Hongcai so she could take care of her own child. Manzhen refused but she later found she was forced to take care of the child when Manlu died and the kid fell seriously ill.

Her motherly love for the child forced her to agree to marry Zhu Hongcai. But she divorced him a few years later, when she discovered Zhu Hongcai still had another wife.

Manzhen and Shijun met each other again eighteen years later when they accidentally crossed paths at Shuhui's home. They told each other what they had been through. Manzhen was very calm as she told her story and Shijun listened quietly, though his face turned paler and paler. They didn't say a word for quite a long time after she finished her story. Finally they learned the truth that confused and pained them for so many years. They couldn't change anything now, but knowing what had really happened made a difference to them -- At least Manzhen now knew Shijun had loved her wholeheartedly, and he knew she'd always been loyal to him. Knowing this brought them both a little wistful satisfaction.

(CRI.com November 29, 2006)