The capital has been gripped by panic lately.
Some people wake up one morning looking completely different, transformed into breathtaking beauties, only to collapse in the street the next day, their bodies melting into pus and dry bones until not a trace of them remains.
Even stranger, the butcher's son, once crude and ugly, suddenly became fair-skinned and beautiful. A black shadow haunts him every night, and he has bizarre dreams. Before he can escape with his life, he drops dead at the entrance to the Court of Judicial Review, his very sex transformed.
My name is Shen Ci. I'm the director of the Court of Judicial Review's Office of Strange Cases. Every eerie case others can't solve eventually lands on my desk.
I thought it was just a string of bizarre crimes. But when I followed the clues, I uncovered the unremarkable Qing'an Shrine in the western suburbs. Four black pillars stand in the middle of the shrine, targeting people who think they're ugly. They use peerless beauty as bait, then devour their lives and vital essence until nothing is left.
A cult leader wearing a bronze mask, tokens embroidered with black mandalas, sinister sacrificial rites lost to history: each revelation is more poisonous than the monsters in the mountains and more terrifying than the vengeful ghosts of the night.
A constable's panicked voice rang in my ears again. "Sir, another strange case has come in!"
I tightened my grip on the sword at my waist, my expression cold.
I don't care what kind of dark magic or sacrificial rites are involved, or what restless spirits are at work. Once a case falls into my hands, I will get to the bottom of it and protect the people of the capital, so they won't be bewitched by illusory beauty and lose their lives.
