Shangguan Wan, a female constable of the Dali Temple, was a brilliant investigator, yet she had no idea she was the orphaned survivor of the Crown Prince’s downfall thirteen years ago. A mystery at a brothel led to a secret letter, three corpses found floating on the waterways revealed a dragon-bone casket, and a poisoning at the academy uncovered old secrets of the Eastern Palace. Every murder in the series she investigated pointed to Prince Liang, Wu Sansi.
The night her true identity came to light, her adoptive mother cried as she struck her. “I wanted you to marry so you could stay alive!” Her adoptive father dragged his sick body to the Dali Temple to turn himself in and protect her. And Pei Zhao, who had helped her investigate the cases all along, turned out to be the son of someone from the Crown Prince’s household. He had spent thirteen years undercover under a false name, waiting for her to become his blade.
At court, Li Wan presented the Tang Code and its commentaries, listing Wu Sansi’s eleven capital crimes one by one. When the dragon-bone casket was opened, Wu Zetian looked at her son’s ashes and personally held a blade to her own nephew’s neck.
The true culprit was brought to justice, but the mists over Lingnan began to stir again. Some said that a man who had been dead for thirteen years had ridden out of the miasma on a white horse.
