A woman and her bridegroom are found murdered in their bed the day after their wedding. It had snowed overnight and the killer left no tracks. It is up to an amateur detective to figure out what happened. Carefully and systematically, he pieces together the clues in this locked room mystery.

The story takes place during the end of the Pacific War and the aftermath period and it focuses on Mizoguchi, who is the son of a Buddhist Priest. When his father dies, he’s sent to the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto. Mizoguchi is physically unattractive and becomes, in some way, jealous of the beautiful Temple that he loves so much.

To satisfy her lover's fetish for tattooed women, Akane agrees to have her body covered in eloborate tattoos by Kyogoro, an old craftsman. Kyogoro has developed a special technique, by which his assistant, Harutsune, keeps Katsuko's mind off the pain while Kyogoro does his work. After the work is done, Harutsune makes the shocking discovery of how Kyogoro mastered his technique.

A Buddhist priest rescues a homeless girl and brings her into his temple's household. Soon she becomes an essential part of the place. One night she is raped by a young man who then becomes her lover. The priest happens on them one night as they make love before the temple shrine, and he becomes erotically obsessed.