In late spring, the city of Liuli Sea was shrouded in a salty mist. Dew had darkened the hem of Xie Wujiao's blue robe. He crouched beside the seventh wooden piling on the dock, watching the bronze mask on the corpse's face gleam with an eerie green light in the dawn.
"Make way!" A member of the Canal Gang used his scabbard to push the onlookers aside, dragging chains across the flagstones with a shrill scrape. Xie Wujiao's fingertips paused behind the corpse's ear. Three silver needles had been embedded in the Fengchi acupoint in perfect alignment, their ends engraved with tiny nine-petal lotuses.
"What does a wandering doctor know about examining corpses?" The red-robed coroner pushed into the crowd, the bronze bells at his waist jingling. When he opened the corpse's robe, Xie Wujiao caught the familiar smell of bitter almonds.
"Wait." He gripped the coroner's hand as a deerskin glove slid from his sleeve. "No one must touch this body."
