In the first year of the Yongle era, the Nanjing palace burns to the ground in a single night, and the Jianwen Emperor vanishes without a trace. Zhu Di seals off the entire city and tortures former officials and eunuchs, but all he finds in the ashes is a charred corpse whose identity cannot be confirmed.
Years later, on Zheng He's second voyage to the Western Seas, he falls ill and lies unconscious for three days. When he wakes, he realizes that his dream of the night Nanjing burned was no nightmare, but an old scheme awakened by the sea.
The headless bones at Baoguo Temple, the secret sea chart hidden by the Taizu Emperor, seven oceans and seven locks, the First Edict of the Headless Temple, a mysterious white-robed Imperial Preceptor, and Shen Mingshu, a girl who can read the “gate script,” gradually lead Zheng He toward a truth erased from the history books: the Jianwen Emperor may not have fled or died, but may instead have been sent through a forbidden portal known as the “Third Gate.”
Zhu Di wants to find Jianwen and secure his throne; the white-robed Imperial Preceptor wants to use Jianwen's name to rewrite the world; and Zheng He must choose between the Emperor's command, the truth, and the realm.
Nanjing burns, and the sea opens the Third Gate. What Zheng He truly seeks may not be the Jianwen Emperor, but the person worthy of writing the first stroke in a new world.
