In 1947, Ray Petriani flees Texas in the middle of the night with a wife and young family. Desperate for work, he takes a job in California and his boss sends him to inland China on a business venture. A gift exchange with the local potentate provides him with two things he doesn't want, things he cannot reject, and things they force him to protect. Those gifts changed his life.

His research of the first item, a gilded antique music box that someone said belonged to a Chinese emperor, uncovers doubts as to its real ownership, raising further problems. Ray refuses to give up his search and believes its significance lies hidden in how he received it.

But it's the possession of the second gift, a pretty female slave, which rocks his world and generates friction with his wife that reaches atomic proportions and plants a minefield of impossible complications. Town people, officials, family, and associates, all full of righteous hatred toward Orientals, seek to purge the area of this Asian beauty who clearly doesn't belong in the United States, but China forbids her from returning.

Can Ray, his family, and this newly freed slave navigate the corridors of bitter animosity from the people of their two countries, attempts on their lives from both sides of the Pacific, and bungling government bureaucracy, to uncover the deep Chinese secrets that entwine their lives?