Before the War of Resistance began, a wealthy young woman in Changsha during the Republican era suffered a personal upheaval and fell into depression. Her father sent her to recuperate at a manor in the northern hills on the outskirts of the city, planted thick with plum trees and reminiscent of Xiangxuehai. He asked Aunt Mei, a destitute student whom her mother had taken in years earlier, to look after her. He also summoned her elder sister back from her studies abroad to keep her company in the countryside. But danger still crept closer without warning, worsening her already unhealed condition until she was nearly driven mad and almost died. Were the incomprehensible events at the old residence the work of fate or of human hands? And why did they happen? Every person involved is a suspect. Certain traits of human nature have endured across time and race: there is goodness and beauty, but also ugliness and cruelty. This story focuses on the tangled fates, loves, and hatreds of these women against the backdrop of their era.
