Deep within the imperial city, where royal power and intrigue intertwine, the midnight watchman's clapper tears through the thick fog and reveals an imperial secret buried for twenty years. Xuanyuan Ge, a mysterious young lord who has lain low in the shadows of the imperial mausoleum, is drawn into a tangled mystery involving the late emperor's sudden death and the attempted murder of his father after stumbling upon a jade fragment stained with blood.
The coiling dragon carved into the white jade is a remnant of the late emperor's Yunlong Pendant, and the key to a shocking truth. Mo Yuan, the secret guard under Xuanyuan Ge's command, has already laid a vast net, while the faint clink of a black iron bracer against a sword hilt brings back the terrifying night his father was attacked three years ago. When a shard of imperial kiln sacrificial-red porcelain emerges from between the bricks, and the startled cries of night owls at the Imperial Ancestral Temple ring over the city, Xuanyuan Ge must walk the knife's edge of the struggle for imperial power and seek answers amid the layers of shadows: the truth behind the late emperor's sudden death, the mastermind behind his father's attempted murder, and the ultimate secret hidden in the jade fragment, one that concerns the fate of the dynasty.
Blending historical political intrigue with suspense and investigation, this story unfolds amid the uncanny settings of imperial mausoleums, ancestral temples, and the inner palace. Xuanyuan Ge will use his wits to break through the traps and his courage to hunt down the culprit, lifting the layers of fog hanging over the empire.
