In the spring of the first year of Zhengping, a bizarre disappearance occurred at Mengjin Crossing on the Yellow River: Lu Xiu, a scholar who was rushing to take the exam, was crossing the river on a moonlit night. The boat disappeared out of thin air in the middle of the river, leaving only a strange sweet fragrance filling the river. On the same night, Pingcheng Taishi ordered Chao Chong to die violently at his home. He was bleeding from all the orifices and smiling. The death condition was exactly the same as that of Situ Cui Hao who was executed a few months ago.
Young Shen Che went south to investigate on his mother's orders, only to discover that the deaths of Lu Xiuzhi and Chao Chong all pointed to a palace secret from twenty years ago - the real cause of death of Emperor Taiwu's biological mother, Du Guibi. As the investigation deepens, he encounters a mysterious killer posing as a guard, and is inspired by Lu Xuan, a survivor of the Lu family in Fanyang. He even meets Wang Hui, the cold and aloof daughter-in-law of the Wang family in Wuyi Lane, Jiankang. The two followed the clues of "The Crossing Soul Fragrance" and finally...
When the truth surfaced, Shen Che faced a choice: make the secret public, or let the grudge sink into the Yellow River forever? Under the moonlight, the soul-crossing incense burned again, and figures loomed in the fog - was it the resentment of the dead or the obsession of the living?
