A new shop called Inkstone Pavilion has opened on the streets of the capital of Dafeng. Its owner, Shen Yanci, is a fortune-teller with a sharp tongue and a gift for spinning tales. When the powerful come to ask about their careers, he tells them, “You’ll lose your post within three days. Better donate some money to ward off disaster.” When corrupt officials ask about their fortunes, he invents a story about how they must surrender their power to avoid calamity, then promptly leaks the news to their rivals.
No one knows that this slippery fortune-teller is the son of a loyal minister from the previous dynasty, who died unjustly. He plays the fool and tells fortunes to investigate the truth behind his father’s treason case and expose the mastermind behind it.
His honest but clumsy assistant keeps getting in the way? No problem, he can use him to fool the villains. A female constable comes to expose him? He turns his “divine predictions” into a scheme and makes her an ally instead. The Grand Preceptor and a fake fortune-teller join forces to frame him? He sets a trap of his own, driving the corrupt officials to distrust and destroy one another.
From a street-corner fortune-telling stall to the imperial palace, Shen Yanci uses a folding fan and a mouthful of twisted logic to turn the Dafeng court upside down. But as he draws closer to the truth behind the late emperor’s death and his parents’ old case, he discovers an even greater conspiracy lurking beneath it all. Even the carefree Seventh Prince is not as simple as he seems.
“Fortune-telling is thirty percent guesswork and seventy percent ripping people off.” Shen Yanci grins as he waves his fan. “As for the truth? It’ll come out naturally once I’ve ‘predicted’ all the villains to death.”
