Identity hook + golden finger twist + promise of satisfying payback + suspenseful cliffhanger
The Great Yong Shadow Bureau is the sharpest blade in the shadow of imperial power.
Beneath that blade are four children, with four files:
Xie Guyun: Loyalty and filial piety. Duan Yidao: Hatred. Bai Wei: Responsibility. Shi Xiaoman: Freedom.
This is the script their adoptive father wrote for them, complete with instructions on how to train them.
Shi Xiaoman, born a street thief, is the lowest-ranking Yellow-class Shadow Agent in the bureau. Her pay is so meager she has to set up a stall on the street. In her life, she's good at only two things: picking locks and remembering numbers. She can recall anything she sees, but only numbers.
Then, one rainy night, she steals half of a secret imperial decree from the body of a courier. The blood on the paper is still wet, and the tiny, blurred writing leaves her able to make out only two numbers: three and seven.
Those two numbers will later bring down a government silver fraud worth thirty-seven thousand taels.
