The deposed empress Yu Wanyin was given a cup of poisoned wine and put to death. When she awoke, she had returned to the night her entire family was massacred. In her past life, she was a discarded pawn of the royal family. In this life, she is a vengeful ghost returned from hell. Armed with poison lore and forensic skills far beyond her era, she pries open the mouths of corpses and makes the dead speak. From strange deaths in minor Jiangnan cases to political conspiracies behind major capital crimes, everyone who wiped out her family will die in a way that seems entirely “reasonable.” When she stands before the emperor and his powerful ministers once more as “the greatest female coroner under heaven,” she will settle more than her family’s blood feud: she will make the guilty answer for every crime and punishment beneath imperial rule. But why does that cold-faced junior minister, who is also investigating the truth, keep trying to hold back her bloodstained hand?
