The Empress Detective

In the first year of the Great Martial Sage Emperor’s reign, on the twenty-third day of the second month, during the hour of the Dragon. The Sacred Capital. Luo Xian, the senior courtesan who ran the most luxurious brothel in the South Quarter of Wenrou Ward, opened a private room on the third floor and went to wake the client who had spent the night there. But she found him dead in bed, blood at the corner of his mouth. He had taken poison… The patrol officers of the Court of Judicial Review received the report and examined the client’s belongings, only to be stunned: the man was Zheng Xian, a senior steward in the residence of Prince Huaishun, Tang Zhen, who had been banished to Liangzhou by the Sage Emperor. On him was also a letter in Prince Huaishun’s own hand, addressed to a high-ranking court official and urging him to join with other ministers in petitioning the Sage Emperor to name the prince heir apparent. Had Zheng Xian really entered the Sacred Capital on Prince Huaishun’s orders? Had he truly taken poison and killed himself, or had someone forced him to his death? Why had he died in a brothel? Was the letter really written by Prince Huaishun himself?… A string of unanswered questions formed a thick veil of mystery over the entire Court of Judicial Review. Liu Zhang, a patrol officer known as a “master detective” who had solved countless baffling cases, was entrusted with the investigation in this moment of crisis. With the support of Meng Hu, the Court’s chief, he set out to solve the case with all his might. As Liu Zhang followed the clues and gradually unraveled the case, he peeled back layer after layer of the dark truth beneath it. A colossal conspiracy, one that would shock the world and determine the fate of the imperial court, finally came to light…