Yang Yang, a 22-year-old graduating history student at Nanjing Normal University, writes her thesis on the Blood Lake Salvation Ritual, focusing on three generations of her own family, the Gu family of Biyuchun in Nantong. During her defense, reviewers including Yan Li challenge her for lacking support from official historical records. Her advisor, Professor Liu, uses a precious handwritten manuscript, the only copy of its kind, to win her an opportunity to conduct a half-month field study in Nantong.
Back in Nantong, Yang Yang discovers three generations of Gu family heirlooms and surviving pages of the original Blood Lake text at her grandmother Gu Chunhe’s home. She learns that her great-great-grandmother, Gu Biyao, refused to perform the Blood Lake atonement ritual as it had been altered by feudal clan elders in the late Qing Dynasty. With her “one package, two dishes, three touches” cooking skills, she founded Biyuchun. Her great-grandmother, Gu Yuwan, fell in love with underground worker Jiang Zhenting while running the restaurant. She held fast to the family business through the war, only to receive news that her husband had died in service. Her grandmother, Gu Chunhe, was persecuted during a turbulent period, yet risked her life to protect the family heirlooms and craft.
At the Nantong Archives, Yang Yang finds first-hand evidence, including an oral account of Gu Biyao and Jiang Zhenting’s certificate of martyrdom, and adds it to her thesis. At her second defense, she traces how the Blood Lake Salvation Ritual evolved from an act of compassionate deliverance into a shackle imposed on women. She recounts how three generations of Gu women made their living through their craft and resisted both feudal and contemporary oppression. Her thesis passes unanimously and is named outstanding.
In the end, Yang Yang and Gu Chunhe restore the old Biyuchun site and revive the family craft. At the Gu family ancestral graves, they pay their respects to those who came before, ensuring that the women’s resilience and skill endure for generations.
