The third year of Zhengde, on the night of the Ghost Festival, at Xisi Archway.
Zhang Tingyu, an official of the Ministry of Revenue, was found dead with his heart ripped out. The doors and windows were locked from within. His face was serene, and the wound was charred black like a ghost’s claw.
Rumors spread through the streets, and officials fell silent with fear.
The Eastern Depot seized the case. After investigating for an hour, it reached a two-word conclusion: supernatural affair.
Li Xuehan, a hundred-household officer of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, was ordered to assist. Inside the dead man’s collar, he found a talisman. Two characters were carved into its back: the name of an office that should have vanished eight years ago.
Over the next three months, a string of bizarre cases rocked the capital.
A beauty in a painting devoured the living. Peachwood stakes pinned a corpse inside an ancient Buddhist temple. Senior court officials died one after another.
Every clue pointed to one answer: it wasn’t ghosts who were killing people. Someone was pretending to be a ghost.
Someone was using a chain of strange cases to undermine the foundations of the Great Ming.
Armed with a simple saber and a band of isolated loyalists, Li Xuehan stepped into a deadlock that had been in play for three hundred years.
When the Embroidered Uniform Guard investigates, it probes the human heart and cuts through the laws of Heaven.
The Eastern Depot wants credit, the Grand Secretariat wants stability, the eunuchs want power, the martial world wants to fish in troubled waters, and the emperor plays the fool in the Leopard Chamber.
Who is pulling the strings behind it all?
Who is using ghosts to kill, human lives to set the board, and the people’s hearts to usurp the throne?
When Li Xuehan finally uncovers the answer, he realizes he isn’t facing one person, but an entire web.
It begins with a corpse at Xisi Archway in the capital, then spreads into the Grand Secretariat, the Eastern and Western Depots, the martial world, heretical cults, and border garrisons, before leading at last to a truth buried for three hundred years:
The Zhengde emperor was no fool, and the Northern Garrison was home to loyal souls.
As long as the human heart endures, even Heaven’s design can be broken.
Very well written and beautiful