The Forensic Belle and Her Ministers Who Rule the Court

When she opens her eyes, she is the daughter of a coroner, sold by her stepmother into a brothel. Her father's body is not yet cold, and she has lost every shred of dignity. But the soul of a modern forensic pathologist lets her draw her first blade in desperation: at the Drunken Red Pavilion, she uses nothing but lividity and corneal clouding to expose the murder of a powerful man in front of everyone. A young general secretly investigating the case, Pei Muchuan, takes notice of her. She trades her knowledge of “the language of corpses” for her freedom, only to become more deeply entangled in the political intrigues of court. To uncover the truth behind her father's brutal death, she burns her skirts, ties up her hair, and joins the bloody battles of the northern frontier disguised as a man. From camp cook to jade-faced general, she makes every corpse speak and brings justice to every wrongful death. At last, as the imperial court closes in around her, she establishes a school for coroners in the hills outside the capital, spreading the seeds of modern forensic science across this benighted age.

On the battlefield, she is the cold-faced military advisor Dugu Xun, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the ambitious general Pei Muchuan, and even sharing a bed with him. In the dead of winter, he leaps into an icy river for her and shields her from every prying gaze with his own body. He even resorts to violence to seize a chest binder for her, willingly accepting a beating from the army rather than regretting it. Then a traitor's poisoned blade strikes. To protect her, he loses his right arm, and his dream of becoming a general is shattered. Fighting back tears, she cuts off his poisoned arm and, with it, his future on the battlefield. From then on, he gives up the sword and takes up the pen, rising step by step to the post of Right Chancellor and gaining power over the court, all to build an impregnable fortress around her. “I lost my sky because of you, and I wield my power for you.”

And in the military camp, the spoiled crown prince Jiang Shiye, sent by the emperor to “gain experience,” laughingly stumbles into her life. On the night she sinks into drunken despair, tormented by poison and guilt