A precious scroll inscribed with a lost Buddhist sutraтАФonce owned by Pu Yi, the last emperor of ChinaтАФis illicitly sold to an eccentric French linguist, Paul dтАЩAmpere, who is imprisoned as a result. In jail, he devotes himself to studying its ancient text.
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A young Western scholar in China hears this account from the grocer Toomchooq, whose name mysteriously connects him to the document. She falls in love with both teller and tale, but when dтАЩAmpere is killed in prison, Toomchooq disappears, and she, pregnant with his child, embarks on a search for her lost love and the scroll that begins, тАЬOnce on a moonless night . . .тАЭ