Beneath the splendor of the Tang dynasty, treacherous undercurrents swirl.
Pei Yan, a military aide in Bianzhou from a family of legal experts, can uncover hidden mechanisms and secret passages with the bronze ruler in his left hand, while his right eye can detect poison and see through the deviousness in people's hearts. He joins forces with Shen Tuo, a young coroner and renegade from the Imperial Medical Bureau, whose silver needles can examine corpses and whose knowledge of poisons is profound. Together, they investigate baffling cases.
In the Tianbao era, one bizarre case follows another:
Crossbows hidden in Bianzhou's ice tribute, corpses wrapped in salt warrants; human bones suppressing dragons in Luoyang, star charts devouring souls; ghost ships transporting poison in Yangzhou, tattoos forming maps; blood jade summoning spirits in Anxi, shadow puppets carrying messages... Every strange case is secretly tied to a shocking conspiracy surrounding the dragon veins.
As they investigate, the Mirror City built by Yuwen Kai of the previous dynasty, Zoroastrian rites involving human candles, the code words of the Jianghuai salt smugglers, and poison manuals from the Western Regions gradually come to light. The mystery of Pei Yan's origins and Shen Tuo's pain over his severed finger lead to a twenty-year power struggle in the shadows. Anxi military weapons, the Yongtong money house, and the dragon veins beneath Taiye Lake finally collide with a thunderous crash in the great chess game of Chang'an.
Drawing on the Tang Liudian and the Youyang Zazu, this series recreates Tang-era forensic techniques such as testing for poison with silver needles and revealing traces with vinegar fumes. Grounded in Dunhuang manuscripts and Silk Road relics, it delves into the secret rites of Zoroastrianism, the coded language of the canal gangs, and other underworld jargon. From Bianzhou's green salt to the poison calamity in Lingnan, from Luoyang's human bones to Chang'an's dragon veins, it brings to life the strange crimes and turbulent officialdom beneath the splendor of the Tang dynasty.
A bronze ruler weighs good and evil; a silver needle lays bare the secrets of the world.
The mysteries of a glorious age are ultimately rooted in the human heart.
