In the twelfth year of Jinglong, Su Ci, chief constable of the Ministry of Justice, is ordered to investigate corruption in disaster-relief funds. She and Xie Zheng, a frontier commander escorting the evidence, are drawn into a mystery surrounding the imperial jade seal of the previous dynasty. When the fiercely principled constable discovers that the truth behind her father's death in battle is tied to military reports from the Xie family, and the battle-hardened general struggles to choose between an imperial command and his conscience, a broken sword engraved with "The mountains and rivers mourn as one" reveals a secret about the imperial heir from twenty years ago. From the bloody case involving grain transport in Qingzhou to an explosion in the imperial tomb's underground palace, the two, each suspecting the other, walk a razor's edge. At last, amid the flames of rebellion in the imperial capital, they prove their most impossible feelings in the most devastating way.
