In a small temple, floating above a haze of incense smoke, the ghost of a young Chinese woman wakes to her own funeral, wondering what could be preventing her entry to the afterlife. It is her three souls-yang, yin, and hun. She must make amends, they warn her…

Civil war China in the late 1920s is fractured by social and political change. Behind the magnificent gates of the Song family estate, however, none of this touched Song Leiyin, a spoiled and idealistic teenager. When she met the captivating left-wing poet, Yen Hanchin, and defied her father, she faced harsh reality: her father could dictate her fate. Her punishment for disobedience led to exile from her family, an unwanted marriage, a lover’s betrayal-and, ultimately, Leiyin’s horrible revenge.

Now a ghost, Leiyin must atone for her sin to earn entry to the afterlife. But her seven-year-old daughter-the sole mourner at Leiyin’s funeral-is in danger. To save her child, Leiyin may have to sacrifice her afterlife and remain trapped on this earth, to suffer as a hungry ghost through all eternity.