Crafts and Life

In Ming Dynasty China, a brilliant and determined young scholar Hong Shu-chang is on the verge of pulling his family out of poverty when his father and uncle are murdered. Facing destitution, yet unwavering in his quest to find their killers, Shu-chang takes a position as teacher in a nearby town's clan school. There he meets Xiang-hua, his enigmatic cousin and local women's doctor. Before Shu-chang has a chance to complete his own mission to find the murderers, however, a burned-out warehouse and two more mysterious deaths demand his attention. He teams up with Xiang-hua and together they delve into the dark side of the town and its families, endangering both their reputations and their lives.

Tragedy strikes more than once in this thrilling opening book!

A young scholar has been holed up in the examination hall, his father was determined that this bright young man should lead the family out of poverty and so he took on all the work of the farm so his son could study, he passed the first level of three exams easily and this is the second level.  When he and his fellow students are released (when you take the exam you need to take everything you need with you for the length of days it takes!) he is surprised to see someone from his home village waiting for him. This friend has brought the sad news that Hong Shu-Chang is now the last of his line as he father and uncle were killed by bandits.  He is lucky enough to be taken in by his late mother's brother, when it is found that a local landowner has claimed the farmland

He want's to find out what truly happened to his father and uncle, but this is superseded by a fire in a warehouse that has wiped out the building and exposes two dead bodies, the problem is that one of Shu-Chang's distant cousins is accused of causing the fire and therefore the death of the people trapped.  Now he and the young man's sister need to combine forces to find out the truth before he can look more deeply into his father's murder.