LuLing Liu Young remembers a significant moment from her childhood in China. When she was six, her nursemaid, Precious Auntie, took her to pray in a temple and burned a piece of paper on which she’d written her family name. In the present, LuLing, now an elderly woman, struggles to remember the name Precious Auntie wrote on the burned paper. She begs Precious Auntie’s spirit for forgiveness and reveals a startling truth: Precious Auntie is her mother.
The narrative shifts to the perspective of Ruth Young, LuLing’s daughter. Ruth is a shy, subdued Chinese American woman in her mid-40s who works as a ghostwriter. She lives in a flat in San Francisco with Art Kamen, her long-term partner, and Art’s teenage daughters, Dory and Fia, who spend every other week with him. Ruth isn’t completely satisfied with her life. She longs to write a book of her own one day but lacks the confidence to do so. She also has doubts about her relationship with Art, which has become strained over the years. The couple has yet to marry despite being together for a decade. Unable to sleep one night, Ruth sits in her home office and studies a manuscript LuLing gave her several years ago, an account she wrote about her life in China. Ruth’s busy schedule and limited understanding of written Chinese have caused her to put off translating the manuscript. Ruth and LuLing have a complicated relationship. They fought a lot when Ruth was growing up due to LuLing’s combative personality and suicidal tendencies. As an adult, Ruth struggles to understand and relate to her mother. Furthermore, LuLing has begun to show signs of confusion and memory loss.
Ruth takes LuLing to Dr. Huey, who suspects that LuLing has dementia. Dr. Huey’s preemptive diagnosis prompts Ruth to reflect on her childhood. In a flashback, Ruth recalls breaking her arm when she was six years old. The shock of the injury rendered her mute. LuLing gave Ruth a tea tray filled with wet sand and a chopstick to write with so that Ruth could communicate without speech. One day, a misunderstanding caused LuLing to believe that Precious Auntie was trying to communicate with her through Ruth’s sand-writing. Ruth played along and pretended to transcribe the words of LuLing’s deceased nursemaid.
The narrative returns to the present. Ruth hosts a family reunion at the Fountain Court restaurant to celebrate the Full Moon Festival. During dinner, Ruth’s present to LuLing and Auntie GaoLing (a framed photograph of the women as young girls posing beside their mother) leads LuLing to make the startling claim that Precious Auntie was her mother—not the woman in the photograph. Ruth assumes that LuLing’s dementia is to blame for this confused remark.
Three months pass. LuLing’s worsened condition forces Ruth to back out of her and Art’s vacation to Hawaii, and Art takes the trip alone. One night, LuLing runs away from her home. Although she returns unharmed, the event forces Ruth to accept the seriousness of her mother’s condition. GaoLing takes LuLing to her house to give Ruth a break. Ruth walks to Land’s End, a beach near her mother’s house, and reflects on traumatic childhood memories.
Ruth returns to LuLing’s house to clean and continues to ruminate on her unhappy childhood. She remembers how LuLing attempted suicide when Ruth was 16 in response to a cruel journal entry Ruth had written about her. When Ruth uncovers stack of calligraphy papers that she recognizes as part of the manuscript LuLing gave her many years ago, Ruth vows to translate her mother’s story and get to know her while they still have time.
Part Two relays the contents of LuLing’s manuscript, which is conveyed in the first-person from LuLing’s perspective. Born in 1916 in Immortal Heart, a village near Peking, China, she grows up in the Liu family, which has operated a renowned ink business for centuries. Although LuLing grows up amongst her extended family, it’s Precious Auntie, her nursemaid, who raises her. Precious Auntie cannot speak due to severe facial scarring, but she and LuLing communicate through writing, gestures, and sounds. LuLing adores Precious Auntie and understands her in a way others cannot.
At this point, LuLing refocuses her story on the subject of Precious Auntie’s tragic past, the details of which LuLing later learns from reading the manuscript Precious Auntie leaves for her before her death by suicide. The narrative picks up before Precious Auntie’s accident, when she is a beautiful, intelligent, and confident woman growing up in a village near Immortal Heart. Precious Auntie is the sole remaining child of a famous Bonesetter and healer who teaches her to read, write, and care for patients. Two of these patients—Chang, a coffin maker, and Baby Uncle, the youngest Liu son—fall in love with and propose to Precious Auntie. Precious Auntie rejects Chang’s proposal, recognizing him as a dishonest, evil man. But she falls in love with Baby Uncle, and they make plans to marry. When news of the engagement reaches Chang, he vows to punish Precious Auntie for rejecting him. On the day of the wedding, Baby Uncle and the Bonesetter escort Precious Auntie to Baby Uncle’s village, where the ceremony will take place. They carry with them the dowry the bonesetter put together for Precious Auntie, which includes the valuable “dragon bones” that are found in nearby caves and used in traditional healing practices. Chang, armed and disguised as a bandit, attacks the wedding party, stealing the precious dragon bones and killing the Bonesetter in the process. Afterward, Baby Uncle vows to avenge the Bonesetter’s death and fires his gun into the air, which spooks his horse, causing the animal to kick him, killing him instantly.
The Lius take in Precious Auntie, who is deep in mourning for her fiancé and her father. One day, Precious Auntie tries to kill herself by swallowing boiling ink. She survives, but the incident results in severe facial scarring and renders her unable to speak. Furthermore, the Lius soon discover that Precious Auntie is pregnant with Baby Uncle’s child. In order to hide the scandal of a child conceived out of wedlock, the Lius pass off Precious Auntie’s child (LuLing) as their own. They allow Precious Auntie to stay and serve as LuLing’s nursemaid, but they forbid her from telling LuLing that she is her mother.
LuLing’s narrative flashes forward and picks up when she is 14. Now that she’s older, she starts to desire the approval of her extended family; the Lius are more important to her than Precious Auntie, who is a lowly nursemaid. When Chang, the coffinmaker, invites LuLing marry his fourth son, Fu Nan, LuLing jumps at the opportunity to bring honor to her family and earn their respect. Precious Auntie forbids the marriage, knowing Chang’s true character, but LuLing ignores her concerns. In a final attempt to convince LuLing to reject Chang’s proposal, Precious Auntie writes LuLing a manuscript detailing her life story, ending with the admission that she is LuLing’s mother. LuLing doesn’t read the manuscript and remains ignorant of the truth Precious Auntie wanted her to learn: that she’s LuLing’s mother. Unable to cope with LuLing’s betrayal, Precious Auntie kills herself. After Precious Auntie dies, LuLing reads the manuscript and learns the truth, but it’s too late.
After Precious Auntie’s death, the Lius send LuLing to live in an orphanage run by American missionaries. She becomes a teacher at the orphanage and eventually falls in love with and marries her first husband, Kai Jing. GaoLing later joins LuLing at the orphanage after running away from Fu Nan, whom she married after the Changs rescinded their proposal to LuLing.
Meanwhile, World War Two begins and makes life at the orphanage unsafe. One day, Japanese soldiers capture and kill Kai Jing. LuLing and GaoLing manage to flee to safety in Peking. After the war ends, GaoLing travels to the United States with Ruth Grutoff, the American missionary who ran the orphanage. GaoLing leaves LuLing behind but promises to sponsor her as soon as she can. In the meantime, LuLing lives a miserable, lonely existence in Hong Kong. She works hard to save enough money to emigrate to the U.S. GaoLing eventually meets two brothers, Edmund and Edwin Young, who agree to marry the sisters, which allows LuLing to join GaoLing in the U.S. LuLing marries Edwin, the older brother, and gives birth to Ruth. However, Edwin dies when Ruth is only two years old, leaving LuLing to raise Ruth as a single mother. While GaoLing enjoys a luxurious lifestyle, LuLing struggles to support Ruth, and she continues to mourn Precious Auntie, tormented by her complicity in the suicide and unable to find closure.
Part Three returns to the present. Ruth hires a scholar named Mr. Tang to translate LuLing’s manuscript. In the meantime, she moves in with LuLing full-time. Two months later, Mr. Tang finishes his translation. Ruth invites him to LuLing’s house to deliver the manuscript and have dinner. When Mr. Tang arrives, it’s clear that he has fallen in love with the woman whose life story he translated. LuLing instantly likes Mr. Tang, who patiently and intently listens as she talks about her life in China. After Mr. Tang leaves, Ruth finally reads her mother’s manuscript. Knowing about LuLing’s life gives Ruth a newfound appreciation for the sacrifices her mother has endured, though she feels sad about the years they’ve wasted knowing so little about each other. Ruth resolves to get to know her mother with what little time she has left.
At the same time, Ruth and Art take steps to repair their relationship. Art offers to finance LuLing’s stay at an assisted living facility. LuLing enjoys her new life at the facility, much to Ruth’s surprise. She continues to see Mr. Tang, who visits her often and takes her on outings on the weekends. On one such outing, Mr. Tang, LuLing, Ruth, and Art go to a museum to see a special exhibit on Chinese archaeology. The exhibit features an oracle bone that resembles the bones LuLing inherited from Precious Auntie but had to leave behind when she emigrated to America. In the end, Ruth learns Precious Auntie’s name from GaoLing, who excitedly recalls that the woman’s name was Gu Liu Xin. Learning her grandmother’s name allows Ruth to reclaim her past and find her voice. In the final scene, Ruth sits at her desk and prepares to write her own story.
