Huainan, 1900. The Huang family, one of the Nine Houses, is wiped out. Its head is killed, his wife captured, and their young son Huang Zhao escapes under the protection of a loyal servant. His mother leaves him a jet-black jade pendant and one final warning: “Don't let him enter the Nine Houses again.”
Ten years later, in Liucheng, Huang Zhao lives hand to mouth under the alias “Huang Sheng.” The black jade at his neck has never changed color, and he thinks it's merely an ordinary keepsake from his mother. He doesn't know what the Nine Houses are or who his enemy is. He doesn't even know that his maternal grandfather is the head of the Jiang family.
Until he meets Li Jiayi, a Miao girl fleeing an arranged marriage.
A tracking parasite has been planted in her, and Jiang family pursuers are close behind. When she sees the black jade at Huang Zhao's neck, she suddenly stops.
“My grandfather once told me that there's a kind of jade that turns from black to green when it touches the blood of a direct descendant of the Huang family.”
A drop of blood falls.
The black fades, and green emerges.
For the first time, Huang Zhao learns what he has been carrying all along.
