A Long Cry Beneath a Moonless Sky

In the early Ming dynasty, as Hongwu founded the empire and purged his meritorious officials, a nameless beggar boy was taken in by Chen Yiyi, a young lady of the Chen family, and named A Chao. The Chen family was confiscated in the wake of the Hu Weiyong case. A Chao took Yiyi's place when she was arrested, but was taken away by He Lan, the commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, and renamed Wuyue. From then on, the world lost a person called A Chao and gained a blade in the Embroidered Uniform Guard's Northern Garrison Branch.

Disguised as a man, Wuyue traveled to Sichuan to investigate the Blank Seal Case, where she encountered Lan Yu, Deputy Commander of the Left Army on the Southern Campaign. Lan Yu was young and arrogant, while Wuyue was cold and taciturn. The Blank Seal Case and a list secretly expanded behind the scenes dragged them both into the same mire. Black crows appeared, an imperial censor arrived in Sichuan, and the courtesan Zhaolu, Crown Prince Zhu Biao, and Prince of Yan Zhu Di entered the scene one by one. Wuyue sought to reopen the Chen family's old case, while Lan Yu sank deeper between military honors and suspicion.

From the Blank Seal Case to the Guo Huan Case, from the Li Shanchang Case to the Lan Yu Case, the four great cases of the early Ming dynasty tightened like four nooses. Wuyue watched the people she had taken into her care die one by one. All she wanted was to protect someone named Chen Yiyi. In the end, she discovered that even this name had become a blade at her own throat.

There is no moon in the sky, no light on the earth. All her life, she waited for a moon that would never come.