Records of Strange Cases

【No transmigration, no rebirth, court intrigue + ancient mystery, a touch of ensemble cast】 In the final years of the late emperor’s reign, a witchcraft case sent shock waves through the entire court. Twenty-one people lost their lives, and countless officials were disgraced as a result. The Cui clan’s sons in the capital were stripped of all their offices and titles and driven out of the city. Countless officials submitted petitions begging Emperor Taizong to reverse the decree. Instead, they were met with the court staff punishment, chilling the hearts of every courtier. Thus began the largest purge of officials since the founding of the Tianyan Dynasty. The once-prosperous Qinghe Cui clan, the greatest aristocratic house in the realm, was barred from entering officialdom through the imperial examinations and never recovered; The presiding official, Gu Huaibang, was hacked to death and his body sunk in the city moat; After the new ruler ascended the throne, Consort Cui was confined to the Cold Palace, where she languished for half her life; Her son, Tantai Yan, was driven from the capital and placed under house arrest in Jinling, forced far from the center of power. The first clash between the imperial clan and the aristocratic houses ended with a sweeping victory for the imperial clan and a humiliating defeat for the aristocrats. But the story was never over. It had merely fallen silent for a time, lying low and biding its time. The wrongs of the past would be set right, and a fresh chance at life was ready to emerge. Today’s story is still a continuation of the past. An ill-omened ghost baby born in a coffin, the bizarre suicide of a county official, a corpse floating in the water, white clay dolls, a dead man whose toes point backward, bodies without a mark on them... Are these countless strange cases the work of murderous personal grudges, or a conspiracy to overthrow the dynasty? Strange cases | factional strife | court intrigue | succession struggles | family and country | romance “Changes in Heaven are no cause for fear; the ways of our ancestors are no law; public opinion need not be heeded.” “Though a thousand or ten thousand stand in my way, I will go.”