In Ye of the thirteenth year of Jian'an, men vanished mysteriously every night, leaving behind nothing but a wet patch of snake scales on the ground.
I was ordered to investigate, but at the crime scene I found the crippled strategist from the Chancellor’s residence, a man everyone feared, crouching before the bloodstains.
“It isn’t a snake. It’s a grudge.” He picked up a scale and slipped it into his sleeve, a strange smile playing on his lips. “Commandant Li, would you care to hear a secret about the Cao clan?”
As the crows took flight in alarm, the scales in his sleeve suddenly gave off the faint sound of a woman weeping...
