In the ninth year of Kaibao's reign in the Song Dynasty, at midnight on October 1st, heavy snow closed the city.
Taizu Zhao Kuangyin summoned his younger brother Jin Wang Guangyi to the palace to drink wine, and he retreated to the left and right sides. The palace people saw the shadow of a candle flickering red in the distance, the sound of an ax resoundingly, and a figure swaying on the window paper like a ghost. At dawn the next day, a generation of heroes collapsed in the Long Live Palace, and King Jin Lingqian ascended the throne as Taizong. The "sound of candle shadow and axe" has become an unsolved case for eternity.
Twenty years later, a bizarre murder broke the peace of Bianjing - an old palace servant was found in the abandoned Yiling Mausoleum, his body standing stiffly, holding half a broken jade ax in his hand. Kou Zhun, an official in the Kaifeng Prefecture, was ordered to investigate the case, but found that he had stepped into a puzzle that had already been soaked in blood: former palace officials died suddenly one after another, old officials of the Jin Dynasty were silenced, and strange "shadow demons" appeared frequently in the palace, and all clues pointed to the truth of that snowy night.
At the same time, a mysterious Taoist who calls himself "The Sky Observer" quietly appears. He claims that Taizu's death should be explained by a thousand-year prophecy - "Double suns soar in the sky, red stars fall to the ground, true dragons exchange blood, and the world is divided again." But now in the court, the secret war between Taizong's disciples to seize the direct heir is in full swing. The deposed prince Zhao Yuanzuo suddenly went crazy, the longevity king Zhao Yuankan (later Zhenzong) secretly gathered momentum, and the harem Liu E was involved in the whirlpool with special talents. A shocking mystery mixed with intrigue, suspense, and fantasy is slowly unfolding in the snowy night of the Millennium Imperial City.
Who is the regicide? What is the real secret behind the "Golden Chamber Alliance"? Is that shadow of an ax shaking in the snowy night the greed of human nature or the curse of destiny?
