Zhao Yuling, a celebrated opera star, is taken as a concubine by a powerful warlord and suddenly enters a world of wealth and excess. But after the general's death, the family collapses under addiction and extravagance. Once admired as a grand lady, Zhao Yuling is cast down into poverty and abandonment. Through her dramatic rise and fall, the novel exposes the decay of patriarchal families and the helplessness of individuals swept up in a turbulent age.