On the night of Pei Zhao's imprisonment, he is subjected to palace castration, and his entire family is executed. Only as he lies dying does he learn that Xie Linyuan, his mentor who died protecting him, has also returned to the world twenty years earlier. One is a censor from a humble family, reborn at seventeen and sworn to drag the all-powerful Cui family down from its pedestal, piece by piece. The other is a revered scholar of the upright school, who seeks no revenge in his new life and wants only to protect this sole surviving scion and persuade him to step away. One advances, the other retreats. Unaware of each other's secrets, master and disciple repeatedly probe one another. A corpse in a dry well, a fire in the ancestral hall, the Huai River salt case... Behind every old case lies the shadow of the Cui family. Until, in the midst of a deadly trap, their eyes meet. “Master, you came back too?” In this life, the lone minister is not alone.
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Please do not imitate.
