The Splendor of Jin

Come discover this cross-strait suspense story about intangible cultural heritage. Huang Wenxuan, the fifth-generation puppeteer of the Huang family from Huwei, Yunlin, travels to Jinjiang with his family troupe to uncover the truth behind his mother’s “illness-related death.” There, he joins forces with Li Kexin, head of the Li family’s glove-puppet troupe, to perform together and search for the lost, century-old manual The World in the Palm. But on the day of the public performance, someone sets fire to the stage. Eight puppeteers perish in the flames, and Huang Wenxuan is left disfigured and amnesiac. Li Kexin stays by his side, bringing him back to Jinjiang to care for him. When his memories return, the two join forces to investigate and uncover evidence that Huang Dewang and their grandfather, Huang Wenyuan, of the senior branch, set the fire to steal the manual. They then discover that someone else was behind his mother’s death: a Japanese puppet-theater conglomerate that had spent sixty years driving a wedge between the Huang and Li families and manipulating events from behind the scenes. When the third layer of the camphorwood chest is opened, they learn that the century-long dispute between the “orthodox line” and the “collateral branch” was a fraud fabricated by the conglomerate. The Huang and Li families were one family all along. Huang Wenxuan’s mother, Li Suxin, had once been trained as a manager by the Li family’s Fujian merchant firm. She faked her death to escape and had secretly protected her son for twenty-eight years. With the truth revealed, Huang Wenxuan and Li Kexin marry at the site of an old opera stage. They use their wedding as a trap, luring the conglomerate’s assassin, Kurosaki, into their hands and bringing him to justice. The undercover boy A Fu gives his life to protect the estate and is reunited with his ancestral family. The Huang and Li families put aside their grudges and establish Shuangmai Garden. At a performance in Tokyo, the conglomerate’s elderly matriarch, Madam Shirakawa, apologizes publicly and hands over sixty years’ worth of evidence. Huang Wenxuan’s mother embraces her son in tears. Years later, Li Kexin gives birth to twins, ensuring the Shuangmai lineage lives on. Even in their old age, the two perform puppetry together at Shuangmai Garden, bringing countless stories to life in the palm of their hands, with the whole world contained in their sleeves and a single heart’s devotion. They protect their culture through their craft and overcome schemes with sincerity. In this life and the next, they will never part.