Strange News from Bianjing

In the fifth year of Xining, the newly built unicorn stone beast in Yujin Garden in Bianjing glowed at night and its eyes moved. The veteran guarding the garden bled to death. Shen Yue, editor of the Hanlin Academy, was ordered to investigate the case, and joined forces with Zhao Chongwu, the military attaché of the Imperial City, and Yan Qing, a female medicine collector, to uncover a shocking conspiracy that spanned the court and the world. Shen Yue was born in a family of criminals. He inherited the wisdom of his grandfather's "Anthology of Doubtful Prisons" and took "Ghosts and gods are not to be feared, only the human heart is to be feared" as his creed. From Bianjing to Hangzhou, from the Qilin Agency to the Miszhou plague, from the secret accounts of the Ministry of Industry to overseas secret medicines, behind every "unexpected news" is man-made calculation and power game. This is an ancient style detective novel that combines historical suspense and Machiavellian reasoning.