Unsolved Cases of the Southern Song

The star songstress Lyu Yao of Lin’an’s Drunken Spring House is poisoned to death, and half a draft of the lyric “Bodhisattva Barbarian” is left at the scene. Du Meng, an investigating official at the Court of Judicial Review, is ordered to look into the case, only to discover that it is connected to a royal secret from twenty years ago. Everyone involved wears a carefully crafted mask of “peach blossoms behind a human face,” and every clue ultimately points to a mysterious Buddhist shrine in the Lin’an prefect’s residence.