Synopsis
During the Jiayou era of the Northern Song, the waterways teem with traffic and Bianjing seems like a dream. Ye Zhiqiu, a scholar from Jiangxi, carries his family's hopes as he heads to the capital to sit the civil service examinations. He devotes himself to the classics, convinced that learning can help the world. By the river in Ezhou, he unexpectedly meets Jiang Yan, a clever and wily young man of the martial world whose origins are shrouded in mystery. A strange affair involving a beauty's handkerchief binds their fates together, and the two set off for the capital.
Bustling Bianjing is not only the height of civilization, but also a vortex of desire and secrets. Suspicious losses in the grain shipments at the docks, clues hidden in a noblewoman's embroidered handkerchief, subtle contests of wit among examination candidates, and faint shifts in the currents at court... An idealistic scholar and a worldly-wise adviser from the martial world are forced into an unlikely partnership.
Ye Zhiqiu seeks order in the principles of the classics, while Jiang Yan sees through the truth by understanding the ways of the streets. From corruption in the grain transport system to the mystery of the embroidered handkerchief, from making a name in the examinations to the undercurrents stirring beneath the surface, they move between study and street, rules and human feeling. Beneath the splendor of a prosperous age, the smallest clues point to a much larger game. And as they climb the ladder of the civil service examinations, the two gradually draw closer to a secret that concerns both the court and themselves.
This is a slowly unfolding scroll of Bianjing life, reminiscent of Along the River During the Qingming Festival, as well as a Northern Song tale of officialdom and investigation starring an unlikely pair. See how a plainspoken scholar and his companion from the martial world each find a way forward amid the tensions between ideals and reality, human feeling and rules, while trying to unravel the true mystery hidden beneath the light and shadow of a prosperous age.
