Di Renjie: Haunting Shadows

During the Xianqing era of the Tang dynasty, the Imperial Seal vanished from the heavily guarded palace. The only clue left behind was a pitch-black token engraved with the words "Phantom Shadow."

Di Renjie, an assistant magistrate of the Court of Judicial Review, is ordered to solve the case before the deadline. But he soon discovers this is no isolated theft. The poisoning at a Luoyang night banquet, the rotting corpse inside a clay statue in the Longmen Grottoes, and the massacre of all thirteen members of the Heluo Escort Agency are connected to the same mysterious organization.

In the martial world, the "Phantom Shadow" is divided into three ranks: the Human rank moves unseen, the Earth rank claims lives, and the Heaven rank never appears. The carefree hero Ouyang Bei is searching for his missing master. He and Lan Luosha, the top woman of the "Phantom Shadow," go from crossing blades to entrusting their lives to each other. The "Rakshasa Cord" in her hands is tied to a shocking secret left behind by Emperor Yang of Sui a hundred years ago: the Imperial Seal may be a fake, while the real one lies beneath an old course of the Yellow River.

As Di Renjie pieces together the clues, he discovers that the "Phantom Shadow" is backed by none other than the current emperor. Emperor Gaozong has laid a grand scheme, using the theft to draw out his enemies, purge those in the know, and find the true bearer of the Mandate of Heaven. Meanwhile, Empress Wu, whose power looms over the court, and the long-hidden remnants of the former crown prince's faction each have their own schemes in this struggle.

When the final veil is lifted, Di Renjie faces a choice even harder than solving the case...