I’m a modern criminal profiler obsessed with crime psychology and the splendor of the Tang Dynasty. After spending all night rewatching Tang Dynasty Strange Cases, I transmigrate into the story as one of its characters: Pei Xijun, daughter of Pei Jian, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel.
At this point, strange cases are cropping up all over Chang’an, and Lu Lingfeng, a lieutenant general of the Imperial Guards, is still just a haughty silhouette from the show to me. As Pei Xijun, I haven’t met him yet, let alone caused the uproar in Chang’an with that “chasing after a man” spectacle. I’m determined not to follow the path of my predecessor. Instead, armed with a thousand years of advances in criminal investigation and profiling, I’ll find my place in this city of splendor and shadows.
When a baffling case, so ingenious it seems like the “perfect crime,” stumps the capital’s authorities, I break into Lu Lingfeng’s world of investigations with a “crime reconstruction chart” combining crime-scene analysis and psychological profiling. He arrives with his sword in hand, his gaze sharp as an eagle’s, scrutinizing me, a sheltered young woman who has suddenly displayed uncanny talents.
Suspicion gives way to testing, then partnership, then reliance. I help him unravel one perplexing case after another: the mystery of the incorruptible “human wax” of Nanzhou, the shadow that devours in Luoyang’s “Mirror Prison,” the night of infant cries surrounding the “Buddha’s Hand” in Jiannan... With every layer of criminal artistry peeled away, I draw closer to the loneliness and scars he hides beneath his cold armor. As we protect the Crown Prince together and weather the turbulent undercurrents of court politics, reason and steel intertwine, and trust and love quietly take root.
After transmigrating across a thousand years, I wield reason as my blade and painting as my medium. I seek not only to understand evil, but also to bring warmth to the young general who has always carried a lamp alone through the darkness, and who has never truly been treated gently by the world.
