Journey Through the Shattered Mist

The Great Yong Dynasty, spring of the seventeenth year of Jinghe.

Chang'an, beneath the Son of Heaven. One hundred and twenty years of peace on the surface, but undercurrents churn beneath. A secret drug called Stilling Cloud Powder entered the common world thirty years ago. After years of cultivation, it has become a vast web stretching from the martial world to the imperial court. Those who take it become addicted and willingly controlled, their livers and kidneys withering until they die, smiles on their faces. The mastermind behind the web calls himself "the Gentleman."

In the winter three years ago, Shen Jie, commander of the Discipline Office, led twelve spies into an ambush at Xingde Temple outside Vermilion Bird Gate, intending to intercept a border defense map being traded by Stilling Cloud Powder dealers to the northern enemy state. The news leaked. A great fire blazed through the night, and Shen Jie and all twelve men perished. Afterward, it was "confirmed" that Shen Jie had colluded with the enemy. The Discipline Office was purged, the entire Shen family imprisoned, and Shen Tingyun, its only daughter, supposedly "burned herself to death at home." The case was closed, and for three years no one dared reopen it.

Until the eighteenth day of the first month of the seventeenth year of Jinghe, when a frozen corpse floated down the Imperial River.