During the Tongzhi period, the Shen family, a well-known weaving family in the south of the Yangtze River, had a century-old foundation of "Yunjin weaving" and was extremely wealthy. The young master of the Shen family, Shen Yanjun, is talented and aloof. He and his cousin Su Xiuping, who lives in the mansion, were childhood sweethearts. Su Xiuping was extremely talented, especially good at embroidery, and the screens she embroidered were praised as "unparalleled in the world". However, as the Shen family became involved in the power struggle in the Imperial Weaving Bureau, secret rifts arose within the family over property and status. Shen Yanjun was forced to marry Liu Yunshang, the daughter of a salt merchant, and Su Xiuping left the house sadly. The Shen family gradually fell into decline due to the strife in the officialdom, and the embroidered screen was lost among the people. Many years later, a lost embroidered screen appeared in a foreign trading house, revealing a grudge and grudge that had been buried for decades. The novel depicts the prosperity and disillusionment of Jiangnan aristocratic families in the late Qing Dynasty with delicate brushstrokes, depicts the love-hate entanglements of obsessed men and resentful women, and shows the last glory before the end of an era.
