The Midnight Cries of the Old Mansion
Synopsis
In the Great Qi Dynasty, the Su family of Linglong Pavilion in the capital was renowned for restoring antique artifacts and crafting ingenious mechanisms. They were especially skilled at solving the lost art of Luban locks. Yet in a single night, the entire family was executed on charges of colluding with the enemy. Only the young Su Weiwan was rescued by a loyal servant. She went into hiding among the common people, taking the name Wanniang and making a living repairing jewelry and solving mechanical locks. In secret, she studied her family's heirloom, the Linglong Manual, hoping to uncover the truth behind her family's destruction through the artifacts they had left behind.
Seven years later, strange incidents began plaguing the old mansion of the wealthy Gu family in the capital. Marionettes wept in the dead of night, antiques in the storeroom moved on their own, and servants claimed to have seen the late Old Madam sitting in the courtyard embroidering. After every Taoist priest they consulted failed to help, the Gu family finally turned to Wanniang, famed for solving strange locks and unraveling eerie mysteries. When Wanniang entered the old Gu mansion, she discovered that every carved beam and painted rafter concealed an ingenious mechanism. The source of the strange happenings pointed to a Hundred-Child Marionette, supposedly bought from the former Su residence. The puppet could turn its eyes by itself, and the locks at its joints were identical to the Su family's unique Linglong locks.
During her investigation, Wanniang crossed paths with Lu Jingyuan, a Vice Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard tasked with tracking down the Su family's surviving remnants. Lu carried an imperial order, but he had his own doubts about the mechanisms in the Gu mansion and the old Su family case. From mutual suspicion, the two were forced to work together: solving the sandalwood cabinet that “kills” anyone who opens it, with a mechanism that shoots poisoned needles; deciphering the “Blood Gauze,” embroidered with a secret message visible only in the dark when revealed by a special dye; and tracking the “Echo Marionette,” which could imitate human voices...
As one secret after another concealed in the artifacts came to light, Wanniang discovered that the Gu family...
