[A highly skilled princess who is righteous to the point of being wicked × A street-smart, sharp-tongued demon hunter who roams the martial world]
Bickering couple / Case-solving / Demon hunting / Wuxia / Episodic stories with an overarching plot
Wu Yao's fiance is dead.
Once a pampered princess of noble birth, she is now condemned by the world as a jinx who killed her husband before they could even marry. The princess aches for her daughter, who will become an old maid in the palace, and frets over her future. But Wu Yao surprises everyone by joining the Demon Suppression Bureau...
With martial arts skills to rely on, is marriage really her only option? Besides, Wu Yao's eyes are unusual: she can see demons invisible to ordinary people.
Those eyes have brought her plenty of trouble. As a child, she saw the consort's cat demon eating a person and was treated as if possessed, with a whole group of Taoist priests summoned to exorcise her. When she grew up, she saw the death aura surrounding her fiance, but no one believed her. They even branded her a jinx whose talk of demons would lead people astray.
The world doesn't believe her. They think she's lost her mind. She swears to uncover the truth in secret, but her methods aren't enough, and the people in the palace can't help her either. With only her ability to see demons, she throws herself into Chang'an's nest of monsters.
Unfortunately, she has bad luck. The first demon hunter she meets is no good sort. He wants neither power nor money. What he covets is her body...
The demon hunter takes advantage of the night to climb into her bed, and she kicks him to the floor.
Wu Yao: "Do you have a death wish?"
Zhu Jinchao grins and leans toward her again. "I'm just warming the princess's bed."
Later, rumors spread through Chang'an that the princess is cursed to kill her husbands. No one dares touch even a princess of the imperial bloodline, except for the pretty boy at her side, though he acts like a brothel regular and isn't fit for polite company.
Zhu Jinchao: "It's not a curse. We're simply not meant for each other. I'm different. We were made for one another."
About the story arcs:
[Bone-Tethered Marionette] The puppet asks, "What is a heart?"
The artisan says nothing. Later, bodies begin appearing around town, their wounds wrapped in red thread. The artisan looks down at her hands and sees that the thread has been drawn from her fingertips. It turns out the puppet isn't the one killing people.
[Stitched-Baby Umbrella] The villagers say a birth demon carries an umbrella whose ribs are made of infant bones and whose canopy is made of infant skin. Lady Lin has suffered this fate in two successive pregnancies. But one night she escapes from the mountains and sees an umbrella opened over a grave without a headstone. Buried there is her first daughter.
[Broken-Tail Sand] An elder of Qingxu Temple turns himself in, confessing that he killed a fox demon and asking to pay for it with his life. He tells the story of a lovesick little demon, but only half of it. The other half is the blood of his fellow disciples and a fox's severed tail.
... (More to come)
P.S.:
1. Set in a fictional dynasty inspired by the Tang. It's very, very, very fictional, so please don't overthink the details.
2. No golden finger. This isn't an invincible female-lead power fantasy. The heroine has a clear character arc.
3. No characters made stupid for the plot, and no love-brained behavior.
4. Episodic fantasy mysteries. Suspenseful but not scary.
5. Both leads are romantically inexperienced. The heroine and her fiance were married in name only and had no feelings for each other.
2026.06.06
Theme: Evil will never triumph over good
