[Alternate history + political intrigue + comeback + multiple heroines]
One fire in the granary, and an eighteen-year-old courier becomes a condemned man. Three thousand shi of military grain reduced to ash. Everyone tells him, "Just confess."
Shen Yan examines the ashes: the grain variety is wrong, the warehouse capacity is wrong, and so are the wheel tracks. He overturns the case in court and forces the county deputy to confess, clawing his way out of a pile of corpses.
But the truth is a chain: behind the county deputy is the transport commissioner; behind the commissioner is a secret order from the Ministry of War to stop sending grain to Shuozhou and abandon the city if necessary. Someone wants all of Shuozhou dead!
Shen Yan has only one choice: keep investigating. From the county seat to the imperial court, from a sack of charred grain to the fate of half the Great Yong Empire.
What he doesn’t know is this:
The borderland general who takes an arrow for him will later become his vanguard commander, fighting her way from Shuozhou all the way to the Western Lands;
The celebrated performer who burns the intelligence archive for him will later take control of the empire’s spy network, with people reporting to her even what tea he drinks each night;
The merchant’s daughter who wagers her entire fortune on his reforms will later oversee the empire’s currency across the four seas, with her mark stamped on every coin;
The steppe princess who goes from captive to ally will later rule the vast northern frontier, where the steppe cavalry answers to her alone.
And then there’s the disgraced Crown Princess who tosses him her saber on the execution platform...
She will later ascend the throne as emperor and sit beside him to receive the court’s homage.
Eighteen years later, after court has adjourned, Shen Yan looks at the six independent military reports, six confidential financial reports, and six tiger tallies authorizing troop movements laid out on his desk. Only then does he finally understand:
He thought he was solving cases, turning his fortunes around, and winning the realm...
But they had divided it up long ago?!
