Whenever I Open My Mouth, Someone in the Capital Dies

[Gentle, clever bookshop young lady × spirited young court investigator]

Liu Songzhen, the daughter of the Liu family bookshop, usually proofreads manuscripts for her father. In her spare time, she goes to teahouses to tell stories. With a clap of her clapper, she spins outlandish murder cases that she makes up on the spot.

One day, she finishes telling a tale about a miser beaten to death with an abacus.

The next day, the owner of a money shop in the city is found dead in his counting room.

An abacus lies beside the body, and a debt note has been stuffed into the victim's mouth. Even the direction in which he fell is exactly as she described.

Fu Xingjian, a court investigator from the Capital Prefecture, stands below the stage with one hand on his saber. He wears a dark official robe, a blade at his waist, and a smile in his eyes.

“Miss Liu, would you come back to the yamen with me and explain yourself?”

“Explain what?”

“Explain how you knew a day before the coroner how the body would be lying.”

Liu Songzhen studies him for a moment, then answers earnestly, “That can only mean the killer has excellent taste and heard my story last night.”

To clear her name, Liu Songzhen has no choice but to help Fu Xingjian investigate.

But before the first murder is solved, a second victim turns up. The stories Liu Songzhen once told begin playing out one after another in the capital.

Before the cases are solved, Liu Songzhen realizes she's fallen for Investigator Fu.

When she hears that the Fu family plans to find him a match, the usually composed Miss Liu can no longer sit still. Rather than wait for him to choose someone else, she decides to ask him herself.

And so, she truly does marry into the Fu family.

But before the newlyweds can settle into married life, a fourth body appears.

Once again, the victim's condition matches one of the stories she made up down to the last detail.

But she has never told this story to anyone.