[Woman disguised as a man] [Possessive pursuit] [Scheming minister] [Marquis's heir] [Mystery and deduction] [Solving criminal cases] [A fragile, dependent man who can't bear to be without his wife and a mighty woman general] Also known as The Record of Ashen Gu (a monumental case awaits them, and they must uncover the truth)
Lu Lanzhou searched for eight whole years.
At last, he found his mentor's son.
He was determined to mold him into a pillar of the realm.
But the man was not only lazy, gluttonous, dishonest, and lacking in character.
He also often behaved in strange ways.
At night, he would hold Lu Lanzhou, his voice hoarse and his eyes bloodshot.
By day, he would cling to him and bring him awful soup and rice.
He even had Lu Lanzhou's likeness dyed onto every handkerchief he carried.
Lu Lanzhou suffered day and night, convinced he had gone astray and contracted an incurable disease.
Only later did he learn the truth: there had never been a “him.” There had only ever been a “her.”
They were both avengers who had crawled out of the dungeons. She was the veil of mist spread across his game of strategy, the gu he could never unravel, no matter how much of his life he devoted to it.
Two people who had endured endless suffering set out on the same thorn-strewn path. She stood beside him in the interrogation room and took his hand on the Western Regions battlefield. Then, on a snowy night, the first fireworks of the New Year burst above Yan Zhao Huiyue Tower. With a knife for a hairpin, the woman broke the old shackles, and the imprisoned people traced the strokes of freedom in the wind.
The court historian held his brush over the page for a long while. At last, he wrote on the first page of The New Chronicle of Yan Zhao:
“In the third year of Yonghe, the gu plague was quelled. In that year, women were permitted to register their own households, and granaries were built in the Western Regions. All under heaven gained the freedom to live in joy. Asked who brought peace to the realm, every child in the streets laughed and pointed: ‘Why, it was General Yuanxiao and her family's living King of Hell, who burned the gu to ashes.’”
