On the fourth day after his grandfather's funeral, debt collectors kick down the door and try to seize the shop. Just as Li Jue tightens his grip on a willow-leaf scalpel, a dying ink-black cat beneath the examination table suddenly speaks.
"The man who killed my owner, Zhou De, is that scar-faced guy outside!"
"There's a gold bar wedged in the bedframe. Save me!"
The resonance with a dying creature succeeds, and Li Jue catches his first glimpse of the art of hearing beyond the living. Only then does he discover that he inherited more than a shabby pet shop on Yin-Yang Street: he also has eyes that can hear the final testimony of animals.
A cat with a poisoned needle hidden in its chest, a yellow dog framed for strangling a puppy, a dead Akita blocking the door to extort money... Every dying spirit pet holds a truth beyond the reach of human witnesses.
But when he follows the clues to the end, they lead to Gu Qingyuan, the medical authority who appears on charity screens, renowned for his benevolence and healing hands.
The medical journal his grandfather kept all those years ago contains the first dirty brick in the foundation of Gu's fortune. Now he wants to take it back, lock, stock, and barrel, swallowing the shop and the land beneath it.
Li Jue lays out the seven willow-leaf scalpels passed down through his family and puts on his white coat.
"I only save animals. Let them speak for themselves about the murders."
