During the Yuanyou period of the Northern Song Dynasty, in Bianliang City, Tokyo, there lived a bookseller named Chen Desheng outside Xuanqiu Gate. He maintained his ancestral bookshop "Moyuntang" and sold the Four Books and Five Classics, medical divination and astrology, as well as popular novels. He does his duty and just wants to live a stable life.
However, overnight, this stability was completely broken. Zheng Mubai, the minister of Dali Temple, visited him late at night and slapped a blood-stained "Ghost Chronicles" on his cabinet. This book came from Chen Desheng's bookstore, but it was involved in a shocking case - within a few days, three officials in Bianliang City died suddenly in strange circumstances. The only thing they had in common at the scene was that they all found broken pages of this book.
Chen Desheng was drawn into the center of the whirlpool. As a helpless scholar, he was forced to rely on his familiarity with books and the market to find a glimmer of hope in the eerie murder scene, the secretive court party disputes, and the ever-present threat of assassination.
As the investigation deepens, he discovers that all the clues point to a long-lost fragment of an ancient book, as well as an unknown palace secret fifteen years ago. And the seemingly cold and ruthless minister Zheng Mubai of Dali Temple seems to be carrying a heavy past that he is unaware of.
