Shen Yan once thought the martial world was nothing more than a business with harder sums to settle.
To secure a trade-route certification from the Xuanjian Sect, her father planned to put her marriage and a third of Tongyuan Escort Agency's income from its escort routes up as collateral. She refused the marriage in front of everyone, then left Jiangnan alone for Mount Heng, carrying the short blade "Fengfeng" left by her grandfather, half a manual, and an iron token.
She wanted to prove at the Newcomers' Tournament that merchants could enter the martial world with their heads held high.
But she won her matches, and the results were entered into the record, yet the wooden token that should have gone to the victor was withheld. She earned a citywide reputation, but was still barred from the Scripture Pavilion. Worse, the iron token led to a name the righteous path had erased long ago: Tianyan Sect.
In the massacre case from thirty years ago, someone upheld order, someone buried the truth, and someone else decided the price all the dead and their orphaned children would pay. Now, the Xuanjian Sect's Law Enforcement Elder demands that she surrender the inheritance. A half-masked assassin tries to identify her in the shadows. Even Xie Heng, who has always believed in the sect's rules, realizes for the first time that a sect's orders and the evidence are not the same thing.
Shen Yan has no intention of taking the blame for her ancestors, nor will she let a prewritten account of the past determine her life.
She will lay the whole ledger open again.
Who gave the order, who profited, and who made others pay the price? They can all come and settle their accounts in person.
