In the seventeenth year of the Republic of China, the wind in the city of Peiping was filled with yellow sand and the cries of newsboys. You Qingwei was the only daughter of the Hanlin family in the former Qing Dynasty. She was full of poems and books, but because of her family's poverty, she became an apprentice in a garment factory in the south of the city. She has bright eyes and white teeth, and a pair of skillful hands that can embroider ordinary plain satin into vivid flowers and birds. In the years when warlords were fighting, the merchants and officers who came to the garment shop had their own ideas, but she just wanted to rely on her own craftsmanship to support her broken family. By chance, she helped her master make a wedding dress for a young lady from the Governor's Mansion, but was mistakenly identified as a thief by the newly appointed adjutant Gu Shaoqing during the delivery. Gu Shaoqing was cold and rigid, and could not get rid of the sand in his eyes, but when he saw the embroidery stitches exposed on You Qingwei's sleeves, he was stunned - it was a unique craft left by his long-lost mother. The two went from being tit-for-tat to slowly approaching each other. In between were the family differences, the flames of war, and the military secrets Gu Shaoqing carried. You Qingwei grew up step by step from an embroiderer to an independent women's clothing designer in the troubled times. She opened the first female-operated ready-made clothing store in Peiping, breaking the old custom with the combination of cheongsam and western dress. Under her influence, Gu Shaoqing changed from a soldier who only knew how to obey orders to a flesh-and-blood person who dared to resist the corrupt system and protect civilians. In the process of searching for their mother's whereabouts, they accidentally got involved in a conspiracy concerning the safety of tens of thousands of people in Beiping City...
