Online suspense writer Ji Wan’s new novel has come under fire for its medical inaccuracies, forcing her to seek inspiration in Yutang Town, an isolated ancient town known for its medicinal herbs. After an accident leaves her in the water, she is rescued by Ning Yutang, an orphan from a family of traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. The two strangers meet for the first time in an old clinic, yet feel a mysterious resonance deep in their souls.
Ning Yutang is like a traditional remedy sealed away for years: outwardly cool and restrained, yet her fingertips conceal a mysterious medical art capable of changing the color of silver needles. Ji Wan, meanwhile, is like strong liquor mixed into medicine, charging headlong into trouble yet always resolving crises when Ning Yutang needs her most. As Ji Wan observes and records every detail of the Ning family clinic for her writing, she gradually discovers the many eerie secrets hidden in the century-old residence: medicine cabinets that change color at midnight, herbs in the back courtyard that glow in the dead of night, and Ning Yutang’s father’s excessive anxiety over the family’s ancestral medical text.
A landslide on a stormy night brings the two young women together as they treat the injured, their fingers clasped tightly together. Beneath the moonlight, the warmth of Ning Yutang’s hands as she treats Ji Wan’s neck is more scorching than any confession. Just as feelings begin to stir between them, Ji Wan happens upon a faded old photograph. The background of a picture of Ning Yutang’s mother, who died young, exactly matches the setting of the only photograph Ji Wan has from her childhood at the orphanage. As they investigate further, the truth about a hospital fire twenty years ago emerges like a poisonous vine: they may be twin sisters who were deliberately separated.
When a pharmaceutical conglomerate frames the clinic to steal its secret formula, fate sets one final test for the sisters. At the intersection of ancient medicine and modern wisdom, the love they have never voiced will become the key to saving each other. It turns out that lotus-root threads growing from the most painful fractures are the best medicine for old wounds deep in the soul.
