A golden hairpin pierces her palm. A face appears beneath the qipao.
Nie Wange is Shanghai’s youngest antique restorer, and the only person who knows where the golden hairpin was hidden on that rainy night. Ten years ago, her adoptive father was silenced, leaving her a hairpin and a warning: “Trust no one who comes asking for it. Especially anyone surnamed Gu.”
Gu Jizhou bursts into her restoration studio on a rainy night, covered in blood and shot in the side. He brings a scrap of qipao fabric and three words: The Eden.
The gambling ship that prowls the Huangpu River deals only in illicit business. Lu Huaijin, a refined foreign-trade company owner, plans to auction a bloodstained qipao aboard it. Among the bidders is the person who murdered her adoptive father.
Nie Wange doesn’t trust Gu Jizhou, but she has no choice but to work with him. The lining of the qipao is embroidered with his birth date and hour.
The golden hairpin is stained with blood, and the qipao has chosen its owner.
The truth she seeks lies not among the living, but aboard a ship of the dead.
Republican-era mystery × antique restoration × a web of schemes
