The moment her whole family is executed, she is pushed into a prisoner cart and exiled to the bitter frontier. With a drafty broken courtyard and vicious villagers, the noble lady tightens her grip on an old jade pendant in her sleeve, striking the first hoe into ten miles of wasteland. A dying retired military household soldier collapses before her door, covered in battle scars, with a heavy and silent promise. She shares half her hidden flatbread with him, and he shields her from the village's open and hidden arrows. He joins the army and bathes in blood, rising from a private to the frontier God of War. She guards the wasteland, only to await her enemies' false charge of colluding with foreign enemies. The old jade pendant hides the truth of her family's destruction, and assassins have already surrounded the courtyard gate. This time, can he return in time?