The last, posthumous work of martial arts fiction master Lee Yung Ping tells of a female knight-errant for whom the quest for vengeance means drawing her sword against ancient forces of oppression.

In the early decades of the 1500s, a new figure with a fearsome reputation appears in China’s underworld. She secures her hair with a pin made of human bone (some say her mother’s) and wields a pair of swords that leave no opponent alive. Her mission is vengeance; her target sits near the very top of imperial power.

Rumors tell that the swordswoman known only as Lady Bai survived an epic injustice that wiped out her whole family when she was still a few years old. From seven to seventeen she studied martial arts; when the Zhengde emperor died, she saw an opening, and set off. On the road, she picks up a groupie: a penniless adolescent boy named Li Que, from whose perspective the story is told.

Lee Yung Ping, a godfather of martial arts fiction, invested the last of his life’s energy into creating a new model for the female knight-errant: a swordswoman both brave and capable enough to take on an oppressive establishment for the sake of a goal all her own. Follow the Lady Bai as she comes face-to-face with the death-dealers of the Ming dynasty – the espionage agency and the Imperial Secret Service – and cuts her way right up to the man pulling their strings from the shadows.