[A Republican-era tale of two formidable leads, a false identity, and a strange romance | A suspenseful elegy for a nation in turbulent times]
In 1925, as warlords carve up the country, everyone in the Jiangnan waterside town of Linshui knows that the Shen family embroidery shop employs a gentle, pitiful blind embroiderer named Shen Tinglan.
No one knows that during the year she has spent with white silk covering her eyes, she has used her extraordinary hearing and memory to gather evidence right under her father’s killer’s nose. The embroidery needle in her fingers is both her livelihood and a deadly weapon. Beneath her fragile appearance lie a year’s worth of pent-up courage and ruthless resolve.
By chance, she saves Huo Qi, a down-on-his-luck businessman covered in blood. A marriage contract between two people with their own schemes soon follows. She thinks she has a handle on a pawn with nothing to lose; he thinks he has found the perfect cover. Then, on their wedding night, they reveal their true identities: she is the orphaned heir to a merchants’ association, seeking revenge for her father, while he is the young marshal of the Huo family army, betrayed and lying low after faking his death.
They soon discover that the foreign trading firms’ arms-smuggling network they have each been investigating leads to the same mastermind. From using one another to standing side by side, an embroidery needle and a Browning pistol tear through layer upon layer of conspiracy amid the flames of war. Together, they protect their battered homeland and each other.
