In the later years of Emperor Renzong’s reign in the Northern Song, the aftermath of the Qingli Reforms still lingers, the threat from Western Xia simmers, and the court’s economic undercurrents swirl around state monopolies on tea and salt and trials of paper currency. Lu Weny an, an artisan who carves printing blocks, witnesses a tea merchant’s brutal death and stumbles upon doubts surrounding his father’s old case. A broken printing block and half a length of Shu brocade drag him into a shocking conspiracy of collusion between officials and merchants.
Armed with the “Cloud-Cutting Brush” and the “Myriad Forms Box,” he joins Zhao Wanzhou, a chivalrous woman from the Grain Transport Guild who can stride across the waves with her “Nine-Bend Ripple-Stepping Art,” and Shen Qingxiang, a brilliant physician and diviner who saves lives and repels enemies with the “Spiritual Pivot Jade-Fluid Needle.” From a blaze in Bianjing’s theater district to deadly schemes at a Hangzhou tea-tasting contest, from secret messages hidden in Suzhou brocade to mechanisms in the vaults of the Shu paper-currency office, they gradually uncover the secrets of the Classic of River Luo and Heaven and Earth. This secret text, which holds the wisdom of the pre-Qin Jixia Academy and conceals mechanisms, celestial patterns, and the currents of fortune, turns out to be the key to the Song court’s economic lifeline.
Pursued by Cao Yu, commissioner of the Tea and Salt Bureau, and caught between the wavering loyalties of the Western Xia spy Yelü Yue and the struggle between the old and new factions, they brave border trading posts and thwart ruthless forces in the martial world. At last, they expose systemic corruption at the Bianjing paper-currency office. In the end, Lu Weny an refuses to enter the court and opens the Myriad Forms Scriptorium in the theater district, using a commitment to fairness to safeguard the people’s livelihood. Yet the classic’s remaining mysteries and unrest along the border still cast a glimmer of chivalry across the mountains and seas.
