[Mysticism + political intrigue + wits and daring + ghost-hunting and monster-slaying + period atmosphere + slow-paced, not a power fantasy]
P.S. The romance comes later in this slow-burn novel.
Shen Junyuan, Minister of War, is convicted of treason. His entire clan is exiled to the northern frontier, a sentence tantamount to death.
Shen Yanqiu, his legitimate eldest daughter, has been away cultivating in Lingnan. With the help of Prince Jing, Qin Xuanming, she escapes exile, assumes a new identity, and returns to the capital.
Qin Xuanming is Shen Yanqiu’s betrothed, promised to her before birth. But their statuses are now worlds apart, so Shen Yanqiu takes the initiative and visits him to call off their engagement.
She opens a paper effigy shop in the North Mountain ghost market, hoping to earn money to support her family in the northern frontier and investigate the truth behind the Shen family case.
Strange things happen one after another after the shop opens. First, she digs up the grave of the Censor-in-Chief Li’s eldest son.
Then she rescues a five-year-old girl from a ghost den, only to discover that the child is the missing young princess from the Grand Princess’s household.
One night, a blood-soaked ghost comes to the shop. He says he is the son of the capital’s richest man, beaten to death by someone.
Only then do people learn that Shen Yanqiu is an inheritor of the ghost arts, able to enter and leave Fengdu.
The carriages of powerful and noble families gradually crowd outside her shop, and Shen Yanqiu’s name resounds throughout the capital.
But beneath the glittering surface of her fame lies danger. As she investigates one strange case after another and uncovers the secrets of powerful court officials, she becomes a thorn in the side of evil forces and is dragged into the struggle for the throne.
She watches with cold amusement. How could those powerful ministers know that all of this is simply a trap to lure them in?
