After Failing the Imperial Exams, I Took a Temp Job with the Embroidered Uniform Guard

The thirty-fifth year of the Wanli reign, Nanjing.

Beneath the grand gates of a prosperous age, undercurrents swirl like the cold waters of the Qinhuai River.

At the entrance to Wuyi Lane in Jinling, a wealthy merchant's widow witnesses her missing husband transform into a terrified, lame "kite man," then get dragged into the unfathomably deep Golden Crow Pavilion. All that remains is an old boot stained with blood and a shattered kite. A strange dark red glimmers within the kite's bamboo frame. Is it ink? Blood? Or something even more ominous?

On Mochou Lake, on her wedding day, a bride's phoenix coronet and wedding robes float eerily above the cold waves, while the bride herself vanishes like smoke. Was it a murder of passion? An elopement? Or is there another wronged soul beneath the water, demanding a life? Shen Yanqiu, a low-ranking Imperial Guard officer, is ordered to investigate, but finds only a torn note reading, "Third watch, west bank of Mochou," written in a hurried hand.

Five dried tangerine seeds, attached to a death warrant, bring a mysterious and violent end to the recipients across three generations... A faded palace sash hangs above the bed in a secluded chamber, while a ghostly whistle rises again in the dead of night... A craftsman with severed fingers crawls out of the furnace of hell, carrying back only one bloodcurdling "lesson"... The luminous pearl on an imperial golden crown vanishes under the strictest guard, leaving shadows everywhere...