Embroidered Bones: A Rainy Night in Chang'an

The novel is set during the Tianbao era of the Tang Dynasty. In the seventh month of the fourteenth year of Tianbao (755), an old well in Yanping Ward, Chang'an, collapses, and more than three hundred human bones are found at the bottom. Qi Guan Zheng, a female forensic examiner from Wannian County, has inherited her family's bone-embroidering technique, which uses silk thread to join scattered bones and reconstruct human forms. Ordered to examine the remains, she determines that the bones belong to seven people and were dismembered before being thrown into the well in two separate batches. While investigating, she works with Kan Su, a judicial officer from the Jingzhao Prefecture, and discovers that marks on the bones are connected to two old cases: her grandfather Qi Guan Zhen's death in prison and her mother Qi Guan Wan's disappearance. Their investigation gradually leads them to a case involving the private minting of copper coins during the Tianbao era.