Before her last breath, Empress Dowager Dou secretly passed the seeds of the coming witchcraft scandal to Crown Prince Liu Ju.
She died with eyes wide open:
"Liu Che… if your mother had endured two more years, this throne would never have been yours…"
Liu Che nailed forty-nine iron spikes into her coffin and buried her in the gloomiest bend of the Wei River.
Yet no one guessed the true storm was only beginning.
Jianghu whispers spread: the Jiangnan Twin Killers are marching north—to settle a twenty-year blood debt.