After ten years guarding corpses at a funeral parlor, Jiang Zhi has lived among the dead. Her skill at examining bones and identifying poisons is unmatched in the capital.
Everyone calls her a lonely ghost living in a desolate graveyard. Only Xiao Jue of the Imperial Guards, clad in his flying-fish uniform, repeatedly braves the twilight to seek her help in solving crimes.
Six linked, bizarre cases sweep through the capital. Bones appear everywhere, and a fragment of a wooden plaque carved with a lotus pattern keeps turning up.
Following the trail through mountains of bones, she uncovers the truth and realizes she is not a helpless orphan. The blood feud stemming from the slaughter of the entire Jiang family of the Imperial Medical Academy sixteen years ago rests squarely on her shoulders.
Xiao Jue bears the emperor’s orders to investigate the old case, placing him between her and her enemies.
Suspicion breeds, misunderstandings weave a web, blades clash, and love and hatred intertwine.
He protects the law; she seeks vengeance for her family.
She fears affection is a trap; he fears that a life together is an illusion.
As layer upon layer of conspiracy reaches deep into the imperial court, secrets about the empress, aristocratic plots, and the crown prince’s origins come to light.
Standing before countless bones, Jiang Zhi says coldly:
“Everyone cherishes blooming flowers, but I, Jiang Zhi, was born from dry bones.”
When the dust finally settles beneath a sky of swirling snow,
the dead branch buried in the desolate estate all those years ago at last finds its way back to its bones.
