Chen Yi, the Master Strategist

Chen Yi, a down-and-out scholar carrying a blood feud, uses his photographic memory to gain admission to the Hall of Worthy Talent. But with no power or connections, he is assigned to the ignored Office of Investigation, where he spends his days surrounded by piles of old papers.

No one knows that, to him, the vast archives of the previous dynasty are a labyrinth of clues, a killing ground where deadly poisons are refined. He finds the truth in the smallest details, sees through the darkness in people’s hearts by studying dry, tedious documents, uncovers the previous dynasty’s deep-rooted ills, and pieces together evidence of fatal crimes.

He borrows the Heavenly Patrol Guards’ blades to cut down the parasites in the court, and uses secret memorials as daggers to strike at his political enemies’ inner circles. Rising from a seventh-rank director to a fifth-rank commissioner, he hears thunder in the silence. On the power chessboard of White Jade Capital, he uses stacks of old papers as the board and people’s greed as the pieces, advancing carefully as he turns the tide and manipulates the court.