A courtesan performs a bewitching dance aboard a flower boat and minutes later is discovered drowned in the waters of a haunted lake... A bride dies on her wedding night and incredibly disappears from her sealed and guarded casket... And soon all the town of Han-yuan murmurs with the whisper of a dreaded, forbidden name - White Lotus. Judge Dee investigates the strange happenings at Han-yuan that begin with a guilty love and lead to a treasonous plot against the Mandate to Heaven.