During the Guangxu era, foreign trading houses slash their prices, and lake silk sells for next to nothing. After his father dies with a bitter grievance, Lu Mingyuan, the son of a silkworm farmer, inherits half of his family's secret book, The Heavenly Craft of Silk Weaving.
From then on, drawing on the wisdom of ancient methods and his own courage, he starts by improving a single silk-reeling machine. He joins forces with local villagers to fight unscrupulous merchants, determined to reverse the trend of cheap silk ruining farmers. Along the way, he founds a factory and weathers the ups and downs of business and the ravages of war, repeatedly rising and falling amid the tides of the times.
From the mulberry groves of Taihu Lake to the world stage, he combines traditional craftsmanship with modern technology, ultimately making Chinese silk dazzle the world once more. This is an inspiring tale of an ordinary man making his way to the top, and a sweeping epic of a national industry enduring through turbulent times.
