The Moonlit Crescent and Ashen Snow

[Please don’t flame if this isn’t your thing. The plot is a little over-the-top and overturns conventional ideas about fighting techniques and power levels.]

In the fictional Liang dynasty, the Xuanjian Bureau handles strange cases and unusual events. The Yin Candle clan possesses a bloodline of pure yang that can suppress evil spirits, but every new moon they must endure a bone-corroding punishment in a frigid pool. Otherwise, the flames that engulf their bodies will burn everything within ten miles. Twenty years ago, the clan was exterminated for treason, with only one surviving bloodline hidden among the imperial family.

Xie Zhaoyue is the daughter of a coroner at the Dali Temple and a mediumistic portrait artist. Xiao Xuejin is the current Ninth Prince and the chief commissioner of the Xuanjian Bureau.

A “Red Powder Skeleton Case” suddenly breaks out in the capital. Several officials die violent deaths, drained of all their blood, their corpses turned a bizarre peach-pink. In his investigation, Xiao Xuejin discovers that every victim took part in the purge of the Yin Candle clan twenty years ago. In the portraits of the dead drawn by Xie Zhaoyue, a burning nine-petaled lotus sigil appears each time.