The remote frontier's salt fields are thrown into turmoil. For decades, three great clans have monopolized salt and grain. Lu Yuan, a disgraced official exiled to this desolate region, breaks through their stranglehold with a pot of discarded brine turned into pure white salt. The Yan family floods the market with cheap salt, sending prices crashing. The Qi family seals its granaries, manufacturing a grain shortage and draining the people's blood. Meanwhile, the trusted accountant defects to the enemy with the master ledger. As a series of deadly plots unfolds, from setting empty warehouses ablaze to poisoning by an insider, Lu Yuan refuses to back down. Armed with nothing but a single salt license and half a granary of remaining grain, he is determined to overthrow a century-old hereditary system.