Whispers from the Bone Station

1.

Chang'an has an unwritten rule: give the Bone Courier Station a wide berth.

These Bone Couriers, who walk the line between yin and yang, wrap bloody silk around their left hands and hang bone-identifying bells from their waists.

They deliver secret messages that must never see the light of day.

Lu Chenbi is the youngest Bone Courier of her generation.

She can feel the finest marks carved into bone, but can't tell why her left arm is growing stiffer by the day.

Until one night, her client was brutally murdered. A military tally of the Lu family army, held in the dead man's mouth, rolled into the dry bones in her courtyard. Her father's name was still bleeding on the bone.

She saw them: the familiar marks.

Everything seemed to point toward the truth behind the tragedy from ten years ago.

2.

Ten years ago, a mysterious person was stripped of their bones and left dead in the street.

Ten years later, the same atrocity happened again on the streets of Chang'an.

As a junior minister at the Court of Judicial Review, Pei Wugou was ordered to investigate the series of bone-stripping murders.

A rain of bones brought a sealed case from years ago slowly back to the surface.

When all the evidence pointed to the cold, beautiful woman who delivered bones...

Sealed case files revealed bloodstained evidence of guilt, and the young judge turned ink into flowers.

"I want them alive."

3.

Just as the truth was about to come to light, someone who had been missing for years returned from the dead.

Lu Chenbi tossed Pei Wugou a bloodstained secret bone.

"Accept it, and you'll be branded a rebel."

He flung his official seal into the flames. "This thing that devours people should have been burned long ago."

"Are you afraid?" The young judge's eyes gleamed with an unusual light.

"I'm afraid you'll die too soon." She bit his bloodstained collarbone.

"After all, you're the only one in the world whose bones fit mine."

P.S. This is my first book, my very first book! Please be patient with any shortcomings. I expect the full story to be around 150,000 characters (I'll try not to go over, orz).

Cover art by @Huo Nange. The lettering, background, and layout were all done by the artist!

Theme: Even when the truth is shrouded in uncertainty, someone still has to seek it out!