In the sixth year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty (1124), Su Ruoxue, the daughter of a widower from Bianjing, discovered during an autopsy that there was an ink-colored lotus from a hundred years later hidden in the stomach of the deceased. The pattern of this lotus is exactly the same as the carvings of a cargo ship in Zhang Zeduan's "Along the River During the Qingming Festival". As the investigation deepens, Su Ruoxue is accidentally involved in a conspiracy that spans time and space - the ship in the painting sails into the real world every sixty years, taking away 108 "star-destined people" whose deaths will directly affect the national destiny of the Northern Song Dynasty.
At the same time, the mysterious painter Zhao Mochen, who claims to be the "Guardian of the Painting", appears. He is actually a descendant of Zhang Zeduan, and has been responsible for preventing ships from appearing for generations. The two team up to investigate and discover that the lotus is actually a mark of time and space left by people from the future, and that the fate of the 108 people coincides with the evil star in "Water Margin", and there is a shocking prophecy of the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty hidden behind it. As the Jingkang Incident (1127) approaches, Su Ruoxue and Zhao Mochen must crack the Lotus Code within three years to prevent ships from taking away the last batch of "stars", but unexpectedly uncover the thousand-year bond between their family and the world in the painting...
