Shou devours the watermelons in a field belonging to a wealthy neighbourhood family. The matriarch of the family is amused and he gets the entrée of the place. Twelve years ago her grandson, only five, was carried off by a kidnapper. Mother and daughter wanted to pay the ransom and ask no questions; son-in-law insisted the police be brought in. When the man came to get the ransom money he realized the trap and ran, and there has been no further word of the child's whereabouts since. His mother died in her next pregnancy; her husband died of grief and illness shortly thereafter. The grandmother, left alone, took in her two orphaned nephews and the older one's wife, but all three are spendthrift and selfish. The grandmother spends her days praying for her grandson's safety, and cherishing the little shoe he dropped when he was abducted.

Then one day a young man appears with the mate to the little shoe. The man he thought was his father told him on his deathbed the truth of his identity, and now he has come home. Naturally this unexpected heir causes trouble for the nephews who had been happily working their way through their aunt's fortune. A twisty mystery tale, where Josei at last is allowed to express some grief over the waste of human life and potential inherent in these human tragedies.

Shou's schoolmates are sick of him eating everything on the table before they can get a mouthful. They challenge him to spend the night in an abandoned house haunted by the ghost of a maidservant who killed herself after being unjustly accused of theft, hoping that will take away his appetite. Shou spends the night with no ill-effect. He doesn't see the woman's ghost that now stands behind him. After that his luck changes totally for the better. A voice tells him the right answers in class- and one day it tells him to go wait at a certain bridge where the servants of an official pass by, looking for a place to shelter from the rain. Shou leads them to the abandoned house. The official was the young master of the house and the serving maid's lover, who cast her off when he thought her a thief. The ghost appears, in tears- but the young man doesn't see her at all

This personable young person is Josei's new assistant and at once starts making himself agreeable to the local rich merchants. Turns out his wife's father had been a powerful man in the Beijing government, but when he died the young man had to take the lowly post of assistant governor in the provinces. Shortly thereafter Shou meets the man's wife. She had been following after her husband but lost him on the way. He takes her to a hostel and tells her husband she's arrived. Shortly thereafter Josei hears two announcements- one that the assistant governor is now engaged to the daughter of a rich merchant, and the other that the wife's murdered body has been discovered at her inn- by Shou!

Shukujin, Josei's superior, is sleepy in the hot wetaher but his secretary forces him to work anyway. On automatic pilot, Shukujin applies his seal to a bunch of documents without really looking at them. Very unfortunately, because one was a personnel review in which Josei's immediate superior charged him with incompetence and recommended that he be removed, and Shukujin ha sjust approved the recommendation. 'He's upright and doesn't take bribes and he's good at his job so of course the people who work with him can't stand him,' Shukujin's secretary explains. And now it's too late to do anything about it. Shukujin tries desperately to apologize to Josei- "I'll get that changed as soon as I can"- but Josei isn't thinking about his career. 'Suppose that was something more serious than a personnel review- suppose he had signed the death warrant of some innocent man without reading it' and says flatly "I hate you." 'And how many more incomepetent governors are there like this one!"

For the time being he decides to go north to see Seirei, an old acquaintance from his early days in the administration who has gone home for the requisite three years following his father's death. Seirei had written a letter to him out of the blue, addressed to his Beijing residence, asking to see him. Josei's wife forwarded the letter to him. Josei goes to see his friend instead- and is taken prisoner by native men from the Miao tribe who work for a Chinese slave merchant. Josei is rescued and freed by Houri, one of the Miao women, who kills the slaver when he insults her.

Seirei is half-Chinese and half-Miao and hoped that Josei in his official position could help his people who are being abused by the governor sent from the capital. Josei is no longer able to do that, and in any case young Miao men have already struck out against the corrupt officials. Houri follows one of them when he storms into the governor's palace and is in time to see him die. She kills the governor and is rescued by Seirei, but now the area is considered in rebellion by the government. The tide of events proves so strong not even Josei can turn it back.