Female surveyor Jian Ban has the rare gift of hearing disturbances in the earth's veins. At seven, she survived a devastating landslide, and from then on carried a copper surveyor's ruler, using soil samples as evidence to investigate disasters across the land. In the case of the Panshan City cave-in, she exposed a conspiracy between local officials and gentry, only to discover that it was merely the beginning. She travels thousands of miles across mountains and rivers, unmasking one man-made disaster after another disguised as an act of nature. Navigating the greed of the human heart and the mysteries of the natural world, she does everything in her power to protect the people.
