Cold Fox Bones: Spring with Embroidered Uniforms and Blades

A frail, sickly fox-like beauty × a ruthless, cold-hearted, money-loving Embroidered Uniform Guard

Investigations + everyday life + mutual teasing + secret devotion

Guo Ke: Frail and sickly, with a fondness for smiling. When she gets close to the truth, she unconsciously smiles like a little fox. She loves blue-green clothes and wears her long hair loose. (Lu Bing always says she looks like a female ghost.)

Lu Bing: Ruthless and cold-hearted, walking the line between good and evil.

Their unspoken understanding: Guo Ke’s eyes move, and Lu Bing’s blade leaves its sheath.

Winter, the fifteenth year of the Jiajing era. Lu Bing, commander of the Southern Office of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, was sent to Jiangnan on an order from the emperor to bring back Guo Ke, daughter of the Marquis of Wuding, who had been living as a widow in Jinling.

When they first met, mist swirled over the river, and the air and water were bitterly cold. The beautiful invalid wore blue-green robes beneath a cloak, her long hair loose. Seated in a pavilion, she watched the snow, as pale as she was, while she coughed until her cheeks flushed red, her eyes shimmering with tears. Lu Bing thought she looked just like a blue-green fox.

Guo Ke gazed at him with eyes brimming with moisture, barely strong enough to look his way. Her visitor was handsome and imposing, proud and distinguished, wearing a flying-fish robe intricately woven with gold thread. A Xiuchun saber hung at his waist, and a black fox-fur cloak draped over his shoulders. He scrutinized her, inch by inch, as if trying to see right through to her bones.

One baffling case followed another. The Embroidered Uniform Guard prowled through the night, while the blue fox plotted a thousand schemes. The edge of his Xiuchun saber caught her blue-green gauze robe, and it slipped gently away, like a flower petal, flowing water, a cloud, the wind.

Winter, the twenty-second year of the Jiajing era. Guo Ke’s illness became incurable. She coughed up blood and died.

You are buried beneath the earth, your bones dissolving into the mud. I remain in this world, my hair covered in snow.

Bonus: A new colleague named Guo Qi joins the company. She’s very charming and brings coffee to General Manager Lu Wang with warm familiarity. Lu Wang looks at her and falls in love at first sight.

She would rather search every branch than settle on one.

The King of Shu entrusts his heart to the cuckoo.

Little scene

Lu Bing: Who came up with this little thing?

Reading the Book of Songs poem “There’s a Fox,” Lu Bing: (worried) The blue fox has no clothes... (blushing) (I really want to...)