Taiping Brocade Guard

The first year of the new emperor's reign, and the era name still bore the late emperor's. Imperial commissioners came south in wave after wave to audit the grain, yet on the river at Taiping Prefecture, water ghosts began to float to the surface. The day Ma Wei came down the mountain and entered the city, he carried only a coarse cloth bundle with a sword wrapped inside. He did not know that the water-ghost grain theft case he had stumbled into was backed by officials in league with the Japanese, merchants selling out the country, and a pair of unseen hands in the capital. Three people fished up from the streets thought they were blades. Only later did they learn that blades, too, are held by someone. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Taiping Brocade Guard — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠