In the 16th year of the Republic of China, Shen Zhiwei, the embroidery girl from Jiangnan, climbed back from hell.
In her previous life, she was trafficked by her relatives, coveted by evil people, and finally died in hatred under the iron heel of the Japanese invaders. And the root of all this is just the secret that the Shen family has guarded for generations - her fingertips can touch the memories in old things and hear the voices buried by time.
In this life, she will no longer hold back or give in.
She fled into Shanghai's French Concession with her mother's belongings and opened a small junk shop.
Repair the damaged ancient relics, listen to the dusty past, and resolve the obsessions in the world.
Hidden in the silver comb is the desperate cry of the imprisoned woman;
In the belly of the guqin are sealed the passionate last words of the patriots of 1911.
Every old thing is a piece of the past that has been severed; every whisper is a destiny waiting to be continued.
Troubled times are like knives, and people's hearts are like ghosts.
Hypocritical wealthy businessmen covet her psychic abilities, foreign warlocks try to steal the Shen family's secret treasure, and all forces lurking in the dark regard her as a thorn in their side.
But this time, behind her stood the seemingly cynical foreign comprador, the lurker who kept his head in his waistband to carry out revolution - Xie Yanci.
From the neon lights and shadows in the Shanghai Concession to the late autumn leaves in the Hutongs of Peking;
From the thousand-year-old cellars in the mountains of western Hunan to the life-and-death battle in the basement of the Forbidden City.
Shen Zhiwei uses needles as blades and embroidery as strategies. He hears the heartbeat of history in every old thing, and tears through the darkness of troubled times as his obsessions are resolved time after time.
She is just an embroiderer. But the needle in her hand can embroider orchids and grass, and it can also pierce the long night.
