The person in all of the capital most afraid of dying is me.
I've spent ten years doing makeup for the dead, yet I faint at the sight of a single drop of my own blood.
And somehow, the Assistant Minister of the Court of Judicial Review had me hauled in. He's at the top of the martial arts world, and I'm a professional at dropping to my knees and begging for mercy.
But I can taste the scent of saltpeter in a charred corpse's mouth, and figure out which shop's noodles he ate before he died by examining the dirt under his fingernails.
He kicks down doors and cuts people down. I make the corpses talk.
The moment the killer puts a knife to his throat, I fling lime powder into the killer's face. "He owes me eight hundred taels. If you kill him, who's going to pay me back?"
Then I catch sight of half a tattoo behind his neck.
