The Book of What Came Before

The Wind Bureau, Incense Bureau, and Water Bureau each guard one of the three sides of the ancient realm. Yet one bureau is missing, its name erased from the history books: the forbidden Pre-Hearing Bureau.

Wen Lan has been able to hear "echoes of the future" since childhood. They are cries for help from people who are still alive, moments before they are about to fall victim to murder.

A child cries her name before drowning.

The voices of the dead overlap with those of the living in the same body.

Some people have had their threads of fate altered before they even die.

Every gust of wind draws her into a case that has yet to happen,

and every future case points to the same hidden forbidden pavilion: the Fate String Pavilion. Its keepers manipulate the threads of fate, deciding who lives and who dies.

The moment Wen Lan tries to reverse the course of fate, the wind speaks for the first time from very close by.

It is her future voice.

She is not dead, the case has not yet come to pass, and the murderer is standing right behind her.