He was not born disabled. Ten years ago, he was a well-known genius boy in Hangzhou Prefecture. He accidentally witnessed a murder. After reporting the crime, he was dismissed in court by the officials bribed by the murderer on the grounds that he was "young, ignorant and talking nonsense", and was even framed. In order to force him to shut up, the gangster drank hot tung oil and burned his throat. From then on, he lost his voice and the path of becoming an official through the imperial examination and clearing the grievances of his fathers through the officialdom. Later, an old man took him under his wing and taught him his autopsy skills.
Because he is unable to speak, he has developed horribly sharp observation skills. He uses ventriloquism in his abdominal cavity to communicate with people. His voice is low and gentle, without any emotion, and cannot detect joy or anger, which gives him a sense of alienation that cannot be underestimated when dealing with living people.
The story takes place in Liyang County, Jiangning Prefecture, a water town in the south of the Yangtze River far away from the capital. The protagonist does not participate in any court disputes. He only uses a box of autopsy tools in a third of an acre of land in this county, and partners with the county government's cold-hearted Lu Captor to uncover a series of human tragedies that the common people call "Liao Zhai ghost stories."
