Hidden Blades in Eerie Whispers

As the bloodstain on the title page of the ancient book seeped into Lin Shen's fingertip, he heard a sound like bones snapping. "The Oath of the Keeper of Secrets is now in effect."

From then on, every truth he spoke became a blade.

Ink-black, eerie shadows crawled out of old books. He stared at the barely visible engraving between the pages, "The Book-Burning Case of the Twenty-Third Year of the Republic," and said calmly, "You are the remnant soul of the Xuan Guai Lu, burned to ashes." The shadow shattered into scraps of paper on the spot. An antique gramophone devoured an investigator's memories. Lin Shen pulled out half an old record. "What you want is the sound of someone crying on July 15, 1973." The metal needle suddenly pierced its own gears, and dark red beads of blood seeped out.

But every time he spoke, one page disappeared from his notepad. It was where, on the night his mother vanished, he had jotted down the last half-line while crouching in a corner of the library: "Third shelf, volume..."

Then a cold-faced woman kicked open the library door, pressing her gun to his brow. "Su Yan from the Bureau of Strange Affairs. The forbidden word magic your mother deciphered back then is coming for your life now."

As he reached into his pocket, his hand touched half of a bloodstained jade token, identical to the one his mother wore before she disappeared.