Two lovers stroll the city market, talking about their plans for the future. He'll have a small farm, she'll sell her needlework. Suddenly they come across a crowd of people, assembled to see an execution- the wastrel son of a rich merchant stole money from his father and eloped with a singsong girl. The money ran out and he was unable to support her any more, but she wouldn't let him go. He killed her and returned home as if nothing had happened, but the matter came to light and now he is to be executed. A grim ending to our young couple's happy afternoon out.

But as we discover matters are a bit more complicated than that. The young man, Sei, is the son of a scholar who died poor. The scholar's friend, a wealthy money lender, adopted the boy as his heir and naturally hopes that Sei will marry his daughter. Sei's girlfriend, Kojou, is the daughter's maid. If only the daughter would find someone else she prefers, they think... and then the daughter commits suicide, and the inquest finds she was pregnant. But that isn't the end of the revelations and deaths in this story of love gone crooked under the pressures of both society and people's innate character.

A gang of robbers is terrorizing the city and the police don't even try to stop them. The thieves are all princes, related to the emperor himself, and they rob out of boredom and for kicks. They attack the house of a relative of Josei's by marriage and knock the husband unconscious. He lapses into a coma and Josei's wife pleads with him to do something about this outrage. 'I certainly shall! I'll investigate the matter thoroughly and report to the Imperial Censor!' he says firmly, much to her disappointment.

However Josei does more than that. He uses his wiles on the Emperor- no, not by batting his eyelashes or wiggling his bum; by coughing at an opportune moment- and the Emperor takes off his own fur coat and gives it to his chilly favourite. It's an unthinkable honour for a native Chinese to be allowed to wear the fur reserved for the imperial family alone. The royal Manchu bravos are incensed and determine to break into Josei's house to take the coat from him-- which was exactly as Josei had hoped. 'We have no gold here to tempt them, so I had to get something else valuable.' They do indeed attack and are captured, but Josei's wife intervenes to have the matter settled privately by the princes' royal (and terrifying) fathers. After all, it's not a good idea to get in bad with the royal family.

Winter time and Josei's boat is icebound, so he and Shou are invited to stay with some local magistrate. In the town a famous young poet has, rather shockingly, accepted a number of female students who meet at his house to present their poems. The star pupil Kinsen, daughter of a prosperous merchant, recites her latest, and everyone is shocked- it's plagiarized from a well-known Tang poet, Liu Zong'yuan. The master admonishes his pupil gently in private, and next day her body is found in the pond of her house, with a suicide note in her room saying she is too ashamed to live after being accused of plagiarism. The girl's father says the poet drove his daughter to suicide, and the poet turns to Josei for help. Josei sees some oddities in the situation, and his investigation turns up a much more complex and tragic story.