The Locked Courtyard and the Twin Fish

Huaiyin Residence is an old siheyuan tucked deep in a Beijing hutong. Gray bricks and roof tiles, the lilting whistles of pigeons, and days like the water in the old vat in the corner of the courtyard: seemingly calm and undisturbed.

Shi Jianguo, the "pillar" of the household, upholds the rules passed down by his ancestors and guards a secret buried deep in his heart: the family heirloom, a translucent jade pendant carved with a pair of fish. It is the family's pride, but also a stone that has weighed on his chest for twenty years. His wife, Qi Ruoxuan, is clever and perceptive. She gradually notices the heaviness and flicker in her husband's eyes whenever he fingers the pendant. Their son, Shi Xiaojun, a trendsetter of the new age, sees the old trinket and the old courtyard as shackles his parents' generation cannot escape. Then one stone shatters the calm waters! A fleeting glimpse by their daughter, an archaeologist, sends a photo of the pendant trending online; or perhaps a muddled mutter from his elderly mother on her sickbed brings to light an old affair from half a century ago... In an instant, their peaceful life is torn apart. Mysterious buyers, greedy property developers, and long-lost acquaintances arrive one after another, their eyes fixed on the priceless pendant and the secrets it conceals. One jade pendant holds the love and hatred of three generations. One buried secret determines whether the siheyuan lives or dies.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.