Broken jade can mend a fractured land, and a master craftsperson’s skill can carry out an emperor’s designs.
A mystery surrounding cultural relics that spans a thousand years, and a life-defying change of fate that begins with broken jade.
Modern-day top relic restorer Shen Zhiwei is transmigrated into the body of a disgraced minister’s daughter, cast aside by the Northern Frontier General.
Struggling to survive in a ruined temple, she puts her restoration skills to use once more. But while repairing a red jade ring from the palace, she discovers a shocking secret message engraved in the corrosion along its break: “Winter, Year Nineteen of the Qianyao era: the Eastern Palace burns, the celestial mechanism shatters.”
It is directly connected to the unsolved case of the crown prince’s mysterious death in a fire three years ago.
To investigate the truth behind her transmigration and her own death, she uses the broken jade as bait to infiltrate the Imperial Works Bureau, only to become entangled in the mystery of the empress’s poisoning.
Under pressure from the cold-faced judicial commissioner Pei Jue, the two form an alliance of convenience: she uses her relic restoration work to uncover clues, while he uses his authority to protect her.
When a restored bronze cauldron reveals the recipe for a poison from an ancient tomb in the Western Regions, and architectural plans point to hidden chambers along secret passages beneath the imperial palace, the “Celestial Mechanism Compendium,” a military blueprint once hidden across a hundred relics, gradually comes to light.
“General Xie, broken jade can still be set with gold and pieced back together. But Shen Zhiwei, the woman who was cast aside, is dead. The person standing before you is a third-rank master craftswoman and seal-bearer, Lord Shen.”
“Pei Jue, look at this broken jade ring: the cracks are where the light gets in.”
Standing atop the jade steps, she raises the Celestial Mechanism Compendium high. Behind her, a thousand restored relics glitter like a sea of stars. “Today, in the name of a craftsperson, I ask you all to help mend this broken land!”
