Mark of Sin, Reversed Scar

The Forest of Steles in the Abyss of Ten Thousand Bones is where the sect metes out punishments. Shen Ye, a menial disciple, has swept the steles there for five years. He owns nothing, and everyone can bully him. Then one day, he is falsely accused of stealing a stele and receives twenty strokes of the cane. Before his wounds have even healed, a black mark of guilt appears on his collarbone. By sect law, anyone branded with the mark is expelled from the inner sect and enslaved for life. But Shen Ye soon discovers that he can transfer the accusation to someone else. The people who bullied him are beginning, one by one, to suffer the punishments he endured. And the clockwise lines in his palm point to a truth that has been suppressed for fifteen years: the man nailed to the stele back then was never a criminal. This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.