Seventeen years old, born to a poor family in Jiangzhou County. His father, Shen Huaiyuan, was once a clerk at the county yamen, but was executed sixteen years ago for a wrongful conviction, leaving the family destitute. Shen Du was taken in by an old coroner and grew up at the funeral home. He began examining corpses under his master's guidance at twelve, and was conducting autopsies on his own by fourteen. Born with unusual eyes, he can trigger the Netherworld Corpse-Examination Eye by touching a body. At first, he sees only vague fragments; later, he can reconstruct an entire crime scene, and eventually, hear the dead person's final words. Taciturn but warm-hearted, he reveres the dead and believes that “a corpse never lies.” Cool on the surface and stubborn to the core, once he sets his mind on something, nothing can sway him.
