Investigator's Guide

In the last years of Jianwen's reign, Jingnan troops approached the capital. Shen Yan, a female official in the palace, caught a glimpse of the hands of power during an autopsy and was immediately put on the purge list. On a night when the city was closed due to heavy snowfall, he fled in a hurry, carrying an autopsy knife and incomplete grid records. Official access was cut off, and he was forced to stay in the Pass Inn, a place isolated from the world due to snowstorms and night bans. At the second watch, the post gate is locked and all the keys are collected. More than a dozen travelers each have their own secrets: envoys in brocade clothes, salt merchants, corrupt officials, monks, doctors, and soldiers guarding the hospital. Before dawn, the distinguished guest in the upper room died in the locked secret room. The window paper was not broken and there were no footprints left. It was like a ghost hand demanding his life. Shen Yan did not dare to reveal his identity, but he had to expose the disguise: poison and fire, door bolts and thin wires, sealing wax and road guides... Every detail pointed to the silence tactics he had seen on the night of Jingnan. In the blizzard, a second body followed closely. Everyone was suspicious of each other, and the real murderer was under the eaves. The unopened letter in the secret room revealed a list of names that had been buried for many years - Shen Yan thought he was escaping from history, but history was already waiting for him to turn around in this snow-covered inn.