There is a new grave on the hill behind Qingshan Village.
Buried in it is Lin Yifeng's cousin, Lu Jianguo, the man who raised him from childhood after he was orphaned, the man who said, "When I get back from this trip, I'll teach you to drive."
Lin Yifeng, who has knelt before the grave for three months, is the little miracle doctor celebrated across the surrounding villages. He can mend broken bones and bring the dying back to life, yet all he could do was watch as his cousin's blood drained away between his fingers in his final moments.
There is one illness in this world he cannot cure.
And one person he cannot bring himself to look at.
Su Wanqing, his sister-in-law.
Twenty-eight years old, widowed for three months. The light in her little shop stays on from dusk until late at night. She is the most beautiful woman in the village, and the thorn in Lin Yifeng's heart that he dares not touch.
She makes him ginger soup and holds an umbrella over him. When he kneels in the rain, she stands behind him in silence. But when he lifts his head and sees her looking down at him, a fire flares in his heart, burning so fiercely that his insides ache.
She is his sister-in-law. She always will be.
Until one night, a car from the Qin family of the provincial capital drives into Qingshan Village.
A dying old man, an incomplete copy of the Qing Nang Classic, and an astonishing secret hidden behind the character "Jiang" push Lin Yifeng out of the mountain village and into the city, from obscurity to the eye of the storm.
With a single silver needle, he can make the powerful bow their heads. With the strength of the Five-Animal Frolics, he can crush martial arts experts. At the brink of life and death, he can turn the tide. But the mountain he can never climb over is the figure waiting for his return in the little shop at the village entrance.
As forbidden feelings burn beneath the judgmental gaze of the world, and childhood affection proves no match for the weight of a final letter
