**Tags**
Political intrigue + intellectual battles + play the pig to eat the tiger + professional fiction + powerful partnership + alternate history
**Synopsis**
Jiang Wandeng is the only female night watchwoman in Bianjing. Inheriting her late father’s clapper and chime, she walks the night, sounding out the peace of the world.
An unexpected encounter on a rainy night lets her glimpse a forbidden deal between the chancellor and a secret envoy from the Liao. From then on, her night watch calls are no longer merely a way to mark the hours. Every step takes her along the edge of a blade. At court, the factions for war and peace alike see her as a pawn; in the martial world, all kinds of forces covet the most detailed map of Bianjing at night, held in her mind.
Using her position as a night watchwoman as cover, she builds an intelligence network spanning the ghost market, grain transport routes, and the back alleys of noble estates. She uses the rhythm of her clapper as a signal to relay life-and-death messages between the Imperial City Division and the Chancellor’s residence.
The stern man she rescued on that rainy night, disguised as a down-and-out poet, is in fact the commander of the Imperial City Division, a man with the power of life and death in his hands. From mutual suspicion to trust with each other’s backs, they join forces to protect a city on the verge of being swallowed by darkness.
The night is long and treacherous officials lurk all around. The drum she must sound is not just a signal of the hour, but an alarm bell for the Great Song dynasty!
