Gu Beichen, a law student, woke up to find himself a lowly adviser in a remote border town of the Great Qi Dynasty, convicted and exiled. The powerful ran rampant, the law was a dead letter, and one case involving a tenant farmer’s “accidental” fall to his death laid bare the corruption of the justice system.
When everyone wanted to hurriedly close the case, Gu Beichen tore the lid off the scandal. Modern forensic science gave him the eyes to see the truth, while the logic of the chain of evidence was the blade he used to cut through falsehood. Though he had little to his name, he launched the first challenge against the deeply entrenched local interest network.
Yet every step toward solving the case brought him closer to danger. He repeatedly cracked bizarre cases with expertise far beyond his era, quickly making a name for himself, but he also found himself drawn deeper into a perilous maelstrom. He had attracted the attention of the powerful Lü Zhi, a eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial Affairs. From then on, he was dragged into a high-stakes game involving imperial power, civil officials, and eunuchs.
In this brutal world where power was the lifeblood and the law mere decoration, Gu Beichen wielded modern knowledge, using the Great Qi Code as his shield and procedural justice as his spear. He had to clear the names of the wrongfully dead, but also bring a final reckoning upon this decaying old world. When the beneficiaries of the old order joined forces to strike back, could he realize his ultimate ideal, that the law stands above all, in an age where imperial authority reigned supreme?
