The most terrifying thing in the Three Realms isn’t demons and monsters.
It’s the ledgers.
A single entry in the Heavenly Court’s books can turn a loyal soul into a criminal.
A single seal in the underworld can send a good person down a path of suffering.
A single page in the Bureau of Fate can mark someone who is still alive as “already dead.”
Shen Zhaowei is the last low-ranking clerk in the Office of Inspection.
The Office has been defunct for three hundred years, and nobody takes her seriously.
That is, until thirty-six soul lamps in the old archives light up at once, and she takes on her first case: the old mountain-fire case in Baishi Village.
They say the children started the fire through mischief, and got what they deserved.
She discovers that someone stole lives, tampered with the records, and displaced souls, writing the names of thirty-six victims into the Heavenly Court’s old accounts.
They say the case is closed.
She traces it to the underworld.
A good man who built bridges and handed out porridge waited thirty years after his death, only to find that someone had taken his reincarnation token, lent out his place in the cycle of rebirth, and transferred his merits to the ancestral virtue of the powerful.
They say it’s standard procedure.
Shen Zhaowei says, “Then I’ll investigate the procedure.”
From the mortal realm to the underworld, from the Book of Fate to the Ledger of Reincarnation, from thirty-six soul lamps to the secret accounts of the Dark Palace
She will find out:
Who turned human lives into blank spaces in a ledger.
It's super beautiful and the author's thinking is so clear. Looking forward to it every day🤩