Hulan's inner turmoil is made even worse when she is forced to shoot and kill a woman at an All-Patriotic Society rally to save a young girl from being stabbed by her mother.

The Chinese government opposes the Society as a threat to public order, an opinion that Hulan strongly shares.

Hulan is sent to an archaeological site near the construction of the massive 3 Gorges Dam project to investigate a suspicious death.

Another is concerned with Chinese archaeology and whether the men and women who work at the dig site are involved in the smuggling of antiquities.

On the other hand, "the real strength of this book is the absorbing portrait of China, from the bugged office of a high official to the dismal hut of a starving peasant, the kind of person who knows what it is 'to eat bitterness.'"