The Gilded Heron

Drifting through the midnight mist of Lake Weiyang, the Golden Heron Pleasure Barge hosts the fragile armistice banquet between the Sun-Strike League and the Night-Heron Syndicate. Sect Marshal Song Jianan is bound by ancient martial chivalry to ensure not a single drop of blood stains the banquet floorboards. Opposite him sits Wen Qingshu, a veiled assassin who infiltrated the lower kitchens with three hidden throwing needles and an absolute vow to avenge her slaughtered master before midnight. But when an elder collapses with his meridians withered by an undetectable palm strike, panic threatens to plunge both factions into all-out slaughter. With the ship’s rudder sabotaged mid-lake, Song and Wen engage in a high-stakes duel of formal etiquette and covert parries to unmask the real instigator.