Jiang Li is a beautiful, unhinged woman who returns home to investigate her parents’ deaths, stepping into a shocking secret that spans thirty-two years.
Shen Tinglan, an untouchable beauty and business tycoon, offers eighty million for her life, then gives her his entire business empire as a wedding gift. Jiang Lie, a fugitive, turns against his former allies for her and presses the silver coin his mother left him into her palm. “It protects your roots and keeps you grounded. Carry it for protection.” Su Yuan’an, a gentle demon, sees through her disguise the first time they meet and offers her a toffee. “It’s okay if you’re broken.”
She follows the trail from Bangkok to Hong Kong, and kills her way from Suzhou to Singapore. She burns the painting, tears down the wall, and brings thirty-two years of secrets into the light.
When her enemies fall, three men wait for her to choose.
She chooses none of them. Picking up the canvas bag worn through with a little hole, she returns all the keys and goes somewhere farther away, alone. The birch forests of Mohe, the blue water lilies of Chongming Island, the rice seeds of Wan Chai, Hong Kong: wherever she goes, she records plant data and sends it back to the pump house regularly.
Jiang Lie keeps measuring the side branches she left behind. Shen Tinglan comes to plant rice every spring. Su Yuan’an uses the fragments of her fallen blossoms to develop formulas. Qin Zhao draws a butterfly that is never symmetrical on the last page of the ledger.
The tangerine-peel tea in the pump house is always hot, and branch 034 blooms right on time every year at Grain in Ear.
She chose none of them, but because of her, they all found themselves
