In the chaotic Republic of China, warlords carved up the land and flames of war swept across the country. The Gu family of the north commanded powerful forces and was a warlord dynasty no one in Beiping dared challenge. Their old mansion, with its gray tiles and upturned eaves, concealed the cold, hard secrets of power. The Su family of the south had woven brocade for generations. Their Su embroidery was unmatched, its threads able to capture all the beauty of a Jiangnan spring, or hide a young woman’s deepest thoughts.
A political marriage pushed Su Weiwan from her embroidery room in Jiangnan into the deep courtyard of a Beiping mansion. Wearing a Su-embroidered wedding dress with a golden phoenix, she stepped from a covered boat onto a stone-paved road and became Gu Yanchen’s wife in name only. He was the Gu family’s second son. His dark robe, patterned in black-on-black, made him look as cold and hard as iron, while the antique bronze pistol at his waist spoke of his family’s blood-soaked vendetta. Her fingertips held the gentle warmth of Su embroidery, yet she had to tread carefully through the whirlpool of power.
The old stone mansion locked away her freedom, while her embroidered gowns bore the weight of her love and hatred. He married her to use her, but glimpsed a softness in the winter plum blossoms she embroidered. She distrusted him at first, but fell for him as he watched over her through the night. Yet conspiracies amid the warlord conflicts, secrets from their families’ pasts, a first love that came too late, and a child who never lived to see the world kept pulling them apart, carving one scar after another between the gray tiles and stone walls.
When Su embroidery’s stitches could no longer mend their broken hearts, and the courtyard walls could no longer keep out the artillery of a war-torn age, the marriage that began as a matter of convenience became, amid tangled love and hatred, the most painful and unforgettable legend of the Republic of China.
