While performing an autopsy on an ancient corpse, modern forensic examiner Shen Yan is transmigrated to Southern Chu during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period by a bronze dagger. He awakens in the body of a destitute coroner who was poisoned to death. A string of corpse-dumping cases dubbed “The Guides of the Yellow Springs” shocks Hengzhou City: seven women’s bodies have been arranged in the eerie poses of a ghost marriage. The case appears to involve witchcraft, but traces of mandrake poison and Persian saffron dye lead him to smell a conspiracy among the powerful. He joins forces with A Zhu, a mute coroner’s apprentice, through their shared understanding of “the language of corpses,” and teams up with Xiao Yanchu, a cold-faced female constable, after their initial suspicion gives way to trust. In a chaotic age rife with witchcraft and warring princes, the three use methods such as vinegar and charcoal to reveal hidden bloodstains and ash and honey to take fingerprints, applying “ancient forensic science” to solve cases involving living human poison puppets and arrays of human figurines.
But every time Shen Yan uses the bronze dagger, it drains his modern memories. A Zhu’s golden eyes conceal a bloodline descended from imperial physicians of a previous dynasty, while Xiao Yanchu’s Broken Rainbow Sword is connected to a map of that dynasty’s hidden treasure. As the thousand-year conspiracy of the Corpse-Transcendence Immortal Pavilion comes to light, Shen Yan must choose between using modern knowledge to overturn the chaos and being consumed by ancient memories. What he leaves behind is more than autopsy records and a penicillin antidote: on every corpse, he inscribes the truth with science.
