In the first year of the Zhenguan era, in Chang'an's Wannian County.
When Lu Chen, a ninth-rank judicial assistant, woke up, a noose was already around his neck. His crime: embezzling ten thousand shi of disaster relief grain. Once the evening drum had sounded eight hundred times and the ward gates were locked, he was supposed to "hang himself out of guilt."
His younger sister was locked in the Cui family's woodshed. The steward was using her fingers to force him to hand over the accounts, and the man waiting to collect his corpse was the deputy prefect of Jingzhao.
As the noose tightened, three lines appeared before his eyes.
[Death Squad Decree: Activated] [Can summon today: 1] [Condition: No witnesses within ten paces]
One today, two tomorrow, three the day after.
The deputy prefect wanted him dead before the evening drums. The Boling Cui clan wanted him dead before the morning drums. The Son of Heaven gave him just one month to discover how the relief grain from Guanzhong had ended up in the Turkic horses' troughs.
In less than a month, three hundred iron masks stood in the shadows throughout Chang'an and beyond.
The Son of Heaven asked once more, "Lu Chen, whose man are you?"
