The Fog City Coroner

Su Manqing returns from studying abroad to work as a forensic examiner.

Her father was a forensic examiner in the late Qing dynasty. He was framed and killed after solving the Lotus Cult case. While overseas, she specialized in toxicology and carries his old autopsy notes with her.

Zhao Shanhe, the deputy police chief and a remnant of the Lotus Cult, recognizes the lotus pattern on the notebook's cover and secretly plots to frame her.

Gu Qinghuan, born into a prominent family, works as a reporter.

Her brother once witnessed the Lotus Cult case. He was murdered for secretly photographing the ledgers of a warlord's dealings with an opera troupe.

Her family's newspaper business comes under pressure from Yang Sen's warlord forces after she investigates the case, and the newspaper's printing presses are confiscated.

A victim in a floating-body case has a lotus tattoo.

When the Lotus Cult was wiped out ten years ago, its followers used tattoos to distinguish their ranks. The victim was an accomplice in the massacre.

The surviving cultists think the heroines are meddling in affairs that aren't theirs, and hide poisoned needles in Sichuan opera costumes to assassinate them.