The twenty-first year of the Republic of China, the Gobi Desert in the northwest.
After his father dies, Pei Changqing finds a piece of yellow silk. It bears a snake-shaped symbol and a single line of writing: "Find it. Finish it. Don't end up like me."
He spends two years searching Beijing and Lanzhou, and finally tracks down an underground ruin beneath Hechang City, dating back two thousand years.
Brenner, a foreign trading company employee, hires him to read inscriptions, unaware that his surname is Pei. The escort, Gu Hengbo, carries a copper button. Three years ago, his brother led a squad down below, and not one of them came back. The camp medic, Ye Zhiqiu, is the daughter of a leading scholar of Dunhuang manuscripts. Her father died in the west seven years ago, and no one can explain how. The guide Ma San's master is the only person ever to make it back up from below. Six months later, he clawed through his own brow.
They went down.
Below the ground was a city. In the city stood an arched gate. Two words were carved above it: Medicine Garden.
No one can say what lies beyond the gate. All they know is that before Pei Changqing came down, Brenner said one thing:
"This pit can bury the living, and it can bury the dead."
Pei Changqing never told him that on the back of the yellow silk in his arms was another line, written in faded ink so small it was almost impossible to see:
"When the blood runs dry, the poison returns."
The Pei family's blood can kill the vines, but it can also destroy their roots. When the blood runs dry, the poison returns.
His father turned back. He will not.
Two thousand years, three generations, and a debt inherited from his ancestors. He will repay it with his own blood.
Or die trying.
