In the winter of the fifth year of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming dynasty, heavy snow blotted out the sky.
Kong Baiyu, a military commander in Dengzhou, was ordered to suppress a mutiny. But as the city fell, he found a baby girl amid a sea of blood, carrying spices from the South Seas. Defying his orders, he took the child and fled east alone. Behind him, Dengzhou burned to the ground; ahead lay an endless, snow-covered wilderness and an unknown future.
At the same time, thousands of miles away.
Alice Fitzgerald, a young Irish noblewoman, received the news that her brother had died in a tribal conflict during the final ball at her family's estate. A blizzard swept in, and English troops were already at the castle gates. In a single night, she had to decide the fate of the castle and its people.
In the twenty-first year of the Republic of China, in Beiping.
Lu Mingzhou, the young owner of the antique shop Listening Snow Studio, travels beyond the pass to investigate a collection of mysterious pawned goods. The clues lead him to an abandoned church on the border. Buried there are not only secrets tied to the rise and fall of three dynasties, but also the final answer to the mystery of the "solitary lamp," which connects the fates of Kong Baiyu and Alice.
Three lonely flames, one great snowstorm, a century of solitude. When the dust of history finally settles, can they each find a way out of their desperate circumstances and live to see a dawn for the ones they love?
