A wealthy man takes a grieving widow as his wife, buying her from her father-in-law, although the widow wants to remain true to her late husband's memory. Fortunately, the rich man's daughter admires and sympathizes with the filial widow, helps her hide in the countryside and then covertly gives her enough money to flee elsewhere and maintain her chastity.
In the summer of 1920, Shanghai was scandalized by a sensational murder, a high-profile case and subsequent trial that was the ongoing topic of conversation in the city's numerous cafes, clubs and teahouses. Among the various reasons for its notoriety, two stand out: first, the victim was a high-class prostitute, well known in Shanghai; second, the murderer had been a mid-level manager in a respected foreign firm, a playboy who in Manhattan might have been termed a "prominent young man about town." There were detailed press reports daily as the case wound its way through the judicial system.
