Seventy-Two Stitches

In the 17th year of Emperor Yongchang's reign, on the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, seventy-three members of the Li family in Longxi died suddenly in one night. The official statement was that it was an epidemic, but only ten-year-old Li Shengnan knew that it was poisoning. When her father pushed her into the secret passage, he only said one sentence: "Live. Come back when you can cut their hearts open." Ten years later, she became a white lady in Guichenzhai in the west of the city. No one knew that this young woman who dressed up the dead had seventy-three silver needles hidden in her kit - each representing a clan member who did not make it out of the house alive. No one knew that her terrifyingly calm hands during the autopsy never removed just the cause of death. Until Dong Ruhai, the chief arrest officer of Jingzhao Mansion, opened the door of Guichenzhai. One is investigating the case in the open, and the other is examining the bones in the dark. From murders in the streets to palace secrets, from fake-death brides to headless generals, old cases have been uncovered, and one clue after another points to the same name - the Ninth Prince Yong Chengze. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.