On the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, Kaifeng Mansion received the body of an unknown man. The face of the deceased was swollen and his facial features were difficult to distinguish. What was even more strange was that his face was artificially disguised and then violently torn off. Gongsun Ce scraped out the residue of the "disguise cream" from the depths of the deceased's nostrils and concluded that someone had disguised him after death and destroyed his appearance.
There was a note hidden on the body of the deceased, with four words written on it: "The eighth day of the lunar month, the west of the city."
Zhan Zhao went to the Tutu Temple in the west of the city to investigate and was attacked by men in black. During the fight, the man in black was killed by Zhan Zhao with a palm. After tearing off his mask, what was revealed was the face of Zhou Yun, an aide to the Censor Zhongcheng's Mansion. There is a green lotus tattoo on the back of Zhou Yun's neck - it was the symbol of Jiangnan's "Qinglian Society" ten years ago.
That night, a fire broke out in the widow's house in Kaifeng Mansion and two bodies were stolen. Gongsun Ce discovered that what the murderer stole was not the body, but the face of the deceased.
A series of puzzles surrounding the "face" began.
In the City God's Temple, there is a corpse with Zhou Yun's face sewn on its face; in the cellar of the Daxiangguo Temple, there is a withered skeleton and an old monk who calls himself Zhou Wen; a secret book that records thirty-seven high-ranking officials; the last words of "Green Lotus will not die, just wait for the spring breeze"...
Bao Zheng, Gongsun Ce, and Zhan Zhao started from a faceless corpse, peeled off the cocoon, and finally uncovered a shocking conspiracy involving the Grand Master, the Taiwei and even the Queen Mother in the palace.
When the truth emerges, what awaits them is the Hongmen Banquet, the Poison Palm Killing Bureau, or a deeper trap?
