Great Jing.
In the Winter of the Sixth Year of Yongxing, the rain in Luojing poured for an entire month.
The young emperor lay bedridden on the dragon couch, absent from morning assembly for three years.
The Prince of Nine Bestowments, Xie Pingzhang, monopolized state affairs under the title of Regent.
Imperial power had been sidelined, and the traditional order had completely collapsed.
Right at this juncture, a bizarre string of murders occurred.
The renowned courtesan Ye Xiang was found dead within her red bed curtains.
Her face had been flayed, and the peeled skin was embroidered with golden thread to form a strange image—the mountains did not resemble mountains, and the rivers did not resemble rivers.
It looked more like some sort of bizarre talisman.
Seven days later, the female Shopkeeper of the West Market Huji Tavern also died.
Another seven days passed, and the newlywed daughter-in-law of the Taiping Posthouse Minister was murdered on her wedding night.
Three human skins.
Three fragmented maps.
The forensic doctor’s hands trembled during the autopsy.
“The skin was flayed from the living.
The victims were wide awake…
they endured unimaginable torment.”
Once the news broke, panic gripped the hearts of the people in Luojing.
Rumors spread that a woman with disheveled hair had been seen on a rainy night, creeping along the base of the walls and leaving behind a trail of wet, bloody footprints.
The whispers echoing through the streets and alleys gradually pointed to a single suspect—the female prisoner who had escaped from the South City Stone Prison.
Yet, no one knew that at this very moment, that same female prisoner was holding an oiled-paper umbrella, standing right in front of her own wanted poster outside the gates of the Embroidery Bureau…