Victorian Era: Solving Cases with Afterimages

[Victorian Era · Mystery and Deduction · Supernatural Abilities · Bizarre Rules · London · Detective · Slow Burn]

The stark atmosphere of Sherlock · The period flavor of Hercule Poirot · The meticulous design of rule-based superpowers

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London, 1896.

My name is Chen Zihao, and I am a Lanliang. I can touch the lingering traces left behind by the dead and witness their final moments.

But these traces record only what the dead believed to be true, and sometimes, people die because of a lie.

An unidentified body is dredged up from beneath Southwark Bridge. A brand on its wrist points to the Imperial Intelligence Bureau. A figure walking away calmly appears in a photograph taken across the river, while the traces on a cast-iron railing tell me this:

Someone laughed at the moment he fell from the bridge.

Beneath the gas lamps, the dead all have testimony to give.

The investigation leads into the tropical greenhouse at the Royal Botanic Gardens, and into the layer of history the Empire least wants anyone to uncover.

The question was never whether the truth was there. The question is whether you dare to read it to the end.