It is October 13, 1871. Three new women—Butterfly, Swallow, and Oriole—have arrived at the Midnight Garden brothel. Petal continues tending the medicinal garden on the Apablasa property. During Gene’s weekly visit, he brings herbs to treat her syphilis and, secretly, herbs for Dove, which Petal passes to Three-Finger Lee. Petal also gives Lee embroidery thread for Dove, and Lee confirms that Dove is being held far away. 

A few days later, Petal’s younger brother, Ah Loo, arrives from China. On October 23, Petal takes him to see her garden. He tells her the latest gossip: Headman Sam has hired assassins and placed a $1,000 bounty on Headman Yo. As they walk back to the Calle de los Negros, they’re caught in the middle of a gunfight when two men open fire on Yo. The third shot passes through Yo’s jacket on his right side, grazing him, while Petal and her terrified brother are trapped nearby.

Against Gene’s wishes, Moon insisted on attending the court hearing for Headman Yo and the two assassins hired by Headman Sam, Ah Choy and Yu Tak. At the hearing, Sam secured bail for his two men by using his store as surety. Yo pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and was also released on bail. Despite the judge’s warning against retaliation, tensions rose in the Chinese community. The following evening, as Moon and Gene stayed home for safety, Ah Choy was shot in the neck by Yo’s men, marking a severe escalation in the tong conflict.

Gunfire erupts while Petal is in the Midnight Garden with Auntie Fong. When Auntie Fong freezes in terror, Petal takes charge. Seeing that there’s a chaotic street battle between police and Chinese men, she ushers a customer, Wa Sin Quai, inside. Deciding that they will be safer elsewhere, Petal leads everyone through an interior hallway to the Forever Prosperous store.

They discover that the store is an armed outpost for Headman Sam and his men, who are engaged in the firefight. Policeman Bilderrain enters, is wounded in the shoulder by the tong men, and flees, blowing his whistle for help. Immediately after, a white rancher enters and is shot and killed. The shootings of the white men enrage the people outside, who become an angry mob threatening the life of the Chinese residents. Petal and the others are trapped inside by the riot.

Moon recounts the beginning of the “Night of Horrors,” when the murder of a rancher named Robert Thompson incited a riot. False rumors spread that the Chinese were killing white people, causing an armed mob of over 500 people to surround the Calle de los Negros. Moon, Gene, Winter Melon, and their assistant Chang Wan barricaded themselves in their apartment, worried about Gene’s absent brother, Gim. The sheriff’s attempt to disperse the crowd failed when the barrel he stood on collapsed, making him a laughingstock. A Chinese man, Ah Wing, confronted the mob with a hatchet, hitting a Mexican man who ran toward him, before being disarmed and stabbed. A rioter’s knife also accidentally wounded another rioter, further enraging the crowd. The mob dragged Ah Wing toward Tomlinson’s Corral, a place known for lynchings.

From the house where she’s held captive, Dove watches the riot as a violent mob drags Ah Wing to Tomlinson’s Corral and lynches him. As the mob prepares to hang another man, Three-Finger Lee enters her room. He offers to take her away so that he can protect her, suggesting that they flee to San Francisco or a ranch. Instead of accepting, Dove reveals her true feelings by asking about her husband. Enraged, Lee tells her that her husband has already taken a new, younger wife and rapes her. 

Dove is left feeling utterly hopeless. She’s trapped, knowing that if Headman Yo discovers what happened, he will kill them both, and that Lee will likely continue to assault her. She feels completely alone and tries to resign herself to this fate.

Trapped in the store, Petal and her companions cower from the mob outside. The attackers shoot pistols and throw fireballs through holes they cut in the ceiling, killing one man inside. Butterfly runs into the street in terror. Petal is horrified to see Ah Loo captured by the mob outside. When Auntie Fong suggests that the back exit as safer than the front, Petal decides to try to save her brother; while Auntie Fong and Oriole create a distraction at the front, Petal escapes through the back, disguised in clothing from the store. Navigating the chaos, she finds the mob preparing to hang her brother and two other men, Wan Foo and Tong Won. Despite the efforts of a few sympathetic white men, Petal is forced to watch as all three are lynched. A man in a suit pulls her from the scene and takes her to the home of Justice of the Peace Gray, where she’s hidden in a cellar with other Chinese survivors. Overcome with guilt, Petal decides that she can’t remain in safety while others are in danger, and she sneaks out to return to the riot.

From 1926, Moon remembers a mob of white men breaking into her home. The men violently seized Gene and Chang Wan. When Gene told Moon to protect their baby, she understood him to be referring to their dog. As she was dragged outside, she heard Winter Melon being harmed. Outside, she and Gene were separated while the crowd called for the lynching of all Chinese people. Law-enforcement officials, including the sheriff, proved useless and abandoned them to the mob.

Moon was taken to Tomlinson’s Corral, where she saw three Chinese men who had already been hanged. Gene and Chang Wan were held captive there. When the rioters ran out of rope, Gene’s patient Mrs. Grascy eagerly offered her clothesline, encouraged by her son. The mob beat Gene, who attempted to bargain for his and Moon’s lives with his hidden gold. A rioter cut off Gene’s finger to steal his ring, and just as Gene was about to reveal his money’s location, another man shot him dead. The mob hanged his body before torturing and hanging Chang Wan. The mob dispersed to find more victims, releasing Moon, who collapsed in grief.

Navigating the riot, Petal returns to the Coronel Block to find the Forever Prosperous store destroyed and several people dead. Auntie Fong, who has been shot in the arm, reveals that Headman Sam’s money chest, a target of the rioters, was secretly hidden before the attack. She proposes a plan for Petal to retrieve the chest so that she, Petal, and the other trafficked women can use the money to buy out their contracts after the violence subsides. Motivated by the chance for freedom, Petal agrees. She finds the box of gold and silver in the Midnight Garden’s oven, wraps it to look like a baby, and carries it through the dangerous streets to her herb garden, where she buries it. Upon returning, Petal learns from the others that Moon and Gene were taken away by the mob and that people are being hanged at Tomlinson’s Corral. Despite Auntie Fong’s warnings that her luck may run out, Petal decides that she must go there to find them.

Moon recalls how Petal found her and helped her to her feet with the aid of Mr. Tomlinson, the owner of the corral and lumberyard. As Petal led Moon away, they encountered a drunken mob of looters who were stopped from further violence by Mr. Caswell, another store owner. Blocked from entering the Calle de los Negros by police, they were sent to the jail for safety. There, they found about 20 other Chinese survivors, many of whom were wounded. Despite her grief, Moon resolved to help the injured. She found her brother-in-law, Gim, who had been fatally shot and comforted him until he died. Eighteen people were officially killed in the riot, not including Butterfly, who was entrusted to a man named Curly Crenshaw for safety but was never seen again. The true toll was likely much higher. None of the official victims were involved in the initial tong dispute. The tong fighters from both sides managed to escape the city, while the fates of their leaders, Headman Yo and Headman Sam, remain unknown.