Gu Changfeng, son of the former Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, is thrown into Tongchen House, where the Crown Prince's remaining loyalists are imprisoned. His father died suddenly while investigating a case, and the emperor grew wary of him. From the start, someone frames him for stealing a jade pendant bestowed by the emperor. A clear voice rings in his ear: “It’s in his left sleeve!”
Gu Changfeng sneers and activates his [Truth-Hearing Ears], a mind-reading ability. He rolls up his left sleeve in full view to prove his innocence, then searches the accuser and finds the pendant on him. There has never been such a thing as a perfect lie.
Tongchen House is a hunting ground for the highly intelligent, where everyone is a master actor. The suspects know all about his mind-reading secret. They use self-hypnosis to fabricate thoughts and stage false crime scenes: they say the corpse is in the well, but the well is empty; they recite vows of alliance while plotting when to stab him in the back. Some even train in “mind-voice disguise,” hoping to lure him into a deadly trap.
But Gu Changfeng never falls for such tricks. Sharp-tongued and fastidious, he is obsessed with the tiniest details and believes that “thoughts can lie, but evidence cannot.” The need for eye contact and a half-hour cooldown on his ability only hone his keen powers of observation. Combining rudimentary forensic methods, fingerprint identification, and bloodstain analysis, he exposes slips in microexpressions and finds logical flaws in the thoughts he hears.
The perfect alibi in a locked-room murder and the seemingly meek, virtuous face behind a series of poisonings are no match for his airtight chain of evidence. “That thought of yours, ‘He definitely believes me,’ is so loud it’s hurting my eyes.”
He establishes himself as the undisputed detective in Tongchen House, solving one baffling case after another as he pieces together the truth behind the Crown Prince’s case and uncovers the mystery of his father’s death. At last, he will deliver an irrefutable defense of his innocence before the emperor.
