Bone Under Lamp

On the night of Lantern Festival in Shangyuan, an unknown female body was fished out of the river. The deceased was wearing the clothes of a high-ranking female family member, but there were calluses on her hands from years of grinding; her face looked like she had drowned, but her throat bones were cracked, and there was a trace of incense ash hidden between her teeth that shouldn't have been there. Zhao Henggu came from a humble background, and was just the most humble female bone examiner in Beijing. She can listen to bones, identify ashes, and mark fingerprints. She is best at finding faults left by the living on the dead. I thought this was just a murder case. Until she followed a set of bones, a fake genealogy, and a marriage certificate, and found out that there was a set of rules hidden among the upper echelons of the capital that were never written on the surface - who could marry into the family, who could give birth to a direct descendant, who must die of illness, and who should be replaced. The bones are illuminated under the lamp, and the bones do not deceive others. But when she looked up, everyone in Beijing was lying for the dead.