A Top Scholar from a Humble Family: I Became a Duchess by Examining Corpses

Born into a family that has guarded imperial tombs for generations, Shen Yuan bears the family name's stigma of "filthy work," while secretly inheriting an extraordinary skill in examining corpses.

A bizarre murder in the imperial mausoleum drags her from the sunless tombs into the treacherous capital. To protect herself, she uses a mutilated corpse as a pawn and breaks through the maze of intrigue, making her abilities impossible to ignore. This draws the attention of Prince Jing, Xiao Che, who has been ordered to investigate the case.

Though she is a commoner and a woman, Shen Yuan earns an unprecedented place in the Court of Judicial Review, becoming the first female official of the Dafeng Dynasty. Facing contempt from her colleagues, oppression by the great clans, and covert attacks from the court, she relies on a corpse-examination knife and a keen mind to solve one strange case after another and rise step by step. From a series of massacres in the capital, to a salt-trade case exposing collusion between officials and merchants in Jiangnan, to a military-supplies case on the border that threatens the foundations of the state... She makes the truth known to all with bones as evidence, and lets the wronged rest in peace.

When she has risen to power and is about to reach its summit, she discovers that the clues in every case secretly lead to a palace massacre from twenty years ago, and to the mystery of her own long-buried origins. It turns out her knife can do more than secure justice for the people: it can overturn the very order of the realm.