Shen Yanyan, an embroiderer at the Jiangnan Weaving Bureau, has the same dream every full moon. In it, a river of flowers burns scarlet, and a young man in a pale moon-white robe holds half of a bronze bookmark and tells her, “When the spring river turns green again, bring this token to trade for your eyes.” On her eighteenth birthday, vermilion tears suddenly seep from the Spring River Painting she embroidered. Threads weave three characters across the cloth by themselves: Tingchao Pavilion. That night, an ice coffin drifts down the Suzhou River. The woman inside wears jade rings on all ten fingers, and the threads caught beneath her fingernails are indistinguishable from the Suzhou embroidery thread Shen Yanyan always uses.
