Against the exotic backdrop of China thirteen-and-a-half centuries ago—a land as filled with magic as Tolkien's Middle Earth—two odd companions seek the Great Root of Power. Number Ten Ox is a strong and eager, but rather naive, young peasant; Li Kao is a wily old sage with a slight flaw in his character and a weakness for rice wine. Together, they undertake a perilous quest to save the children of Ox's village from death by poison. The path they take leads them to a homicidal matriarch, the cruelest duke in history, monsters both visible and invisible, men ...
The abbot of a humble monastery in the Valley of Sorrows calls upon Master Li and Number Ten Ox to investigate the killing of a monk and the theft of a seemingly inconsequential manuscript from its library. Suspicion soon lands on the infamous Laughing Prince Liu Sheng—who has been dead for about 750 years. To solve this mystery and others, the incongruous duo will have to travel across China, outwit a half-barbarian king, and saunter into (and out of) Hell itself.
