In the early years of the Chunxi reign of the Southern Song, in Quanzhou's Citong City.
After her father died at sea aboard the incense ship Haiyan, Lin Zhaowei inherited only half of a sealed incense shop, three hundred strings of debt, and a shipping ledger that didn't add up. Her clansmen pressured her to hand over the shop, the incense merchants cut off her supplies, and government monopoly rules placed one restriction after another in her way.
Starting with a bag of damp incense, she made incense pills, set quality grades, and drew up contracts. Between foreign merchants in the port and ordinary townsfolk, she rebuilt trust and transformed a failing shop into an incense business serving merchant ships from every land. Meanwhile, she and Shen Xun, a clerk in the Maritime Trade Office, followed the same missing ledger in their investigation. They gradually discovered that her father's ship hadn't sunk in a storm: someone had erased it entirely from the official port entry register.
One incense burner held business, human hearts, and an old case buried beneath the sea wind for years. What Lin Zhaowei wanted to reclaim was more than a shop. She also wanted the name and the freedom of choice she had earned with her own hands.
