The Three Ladies of Bianjing

A Man, who rolls in the mud; Qi Niang, who lives within bones; Su Jin, who hides blood beneath her needles. One-line hook: A woman's corpse surfaces in the Bian River, her left hand wrapped in purple Liao silk, her right clutching a token from an underground gambling den. Three women crushed beneath the city of Bianjing are bound together by the bones of one dead person.