A beautiful Chinese princess named La Ho Ta is always unhappy, even though she has everything she could possibly need. She comes to believe that only the 'sweet sound of a bamboo flute in the night' could cure her. Soon, all the flute players in the country queue to play for her, but their music sounds to her like the sqeaking of mice and rats. A young man named Rightheart, the son of the flute maker Tsu Ling, longs to make the princess happy. He learns that eighteen years earlier, his father was commissioned to craft a flute for the King of Korea, Ma Sul Sa. But Ma Sul Sa had stolen the soul of a newborn girl and wanted Tsu Ling to place it in the flute so that the flute would make the most beautiful sound. This soul, they now realise, must have been La Ho Ta's. Rightheart sets out on a difficult and dangerous journey to retrieve the flute, and the Princess's soul.
