The Pharaoh's Wife in the Light's Shadow

Jiang Wan, a science-minded young woman, is reading The Beloved Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh when a flash of white light sweeps her onto an ancient Egyptian battlefield. She witnesses Amenhotep II (Kakheb) committing atrocities, piling up severed hands to build a monument to his military achievements. Not only does he notice her because her Eastern eyes resemble those of his mother, Su Ni, but she also angers the pharaoh by treating prisoners of war and exposing flaws in a bronze-making formula. As punishment, she is sent to the armory to sort out ten years of hopelessly muddled accounts. Jiang Wan uses mathematical modeling to tackle the chaotic records, only to be drawn into the deadly whirlpool of arms-dealing corruption. As Kakheb is driven mad by excruciating pain and the shadow of his dead mother, he grips her wrist and roars, “Cure it! Or I’ll list you as ‘losses’!” When a scientific mind clashes with a tyrant’s inner demons, can she find a glimmer of a way home amid power struggles and the erasure of history?