Dark Night at Tang Palace - Chapter 1

During the Zhenyuan period, Tang Dynasty had just stabilized and the kingdom was slowly emerging from the ruins of the An-Shi Rebellion. However, dark currents still surged beneath the surface. One autumn day at dawn, the small town of Chengping at Jiangnan was suddenly shrouded in a deadly silence. The residence of the notable “Xu Yuanwai” was marked with bl00d curse symbol. Lanterns brightly lit the night and soldiers were on guard everywhere. The townspeople whispered in the corners but no one dared to approach the residence even a step.

Song Xuance, the county magistrate of Chengping at the time, was forced to wake from his sleep. He stood at the scene of the incident looking at the three corpses lying under the pale moonlight, a sense of ominous feeling rising in his heart. Xu Yuanwai, County Deputy Ma Ze and Prefect Wei Lu were all prominent figures in the area yet now they had all met untimely deaths, their bodies covered in knife wounds but none of them is fatal. Their eyes had been gouged out and their mouths curled into strange smiles as if mocking something.

These bodies… they’ve been staged. Song Xuance squatted down, carefully examining each wound. His gaze finally landed on the chest of the Xu Yuanwai, where a pattern drawn in fresh bl00d. It looks messy, but there is something disturbing about it.

“Is this… a bl00d curse?” He murmured to himself, a flicker of surprise crossing his mind. Bl00d curse, this ancient and mysterious term, usually only appears in rumors. Legend has it that the person who casts this spell needs the bl00d and soul of a living person as a medium. The curse would manifest if the caster harbored resentment and the cursed person would often die an unnatural death.

“My Lord, what is this?” Seeing Song Xuance’s solemn expression, Hu Ming, the captain of the constables couldn’t help but ask. “This is a bl00d curse, a curse technique.” Song Xuance stood up slowly, frowning, “But I’ve never seen such a complicated symbol. There’s something fishy about this.”

He raised his head and looked around, faintly sensing that there seemed to be a pair of eyes watching them from the darkness. Song Xuance turned to Hu Ming and said “Gather everyone in the mansion to the front hall, I want to question them one by one.” At the same time a greater doubt was swirling in his mind: who could kill three people in Chengping County and set up such a complex curse?

The night was deep and Song Xuance stood alone in the side hall of the mansion. On the table, lay scattered items found in the rooms of the three deceased. He examined each item carefully trying to find the connections between them.

“Eh, what is this?” He dug out an old book from Xu Yuanwai’s room, the cover was already worn and tattered but he could vaguely read the title <<Yin Talisman Sutra>>. Song Xuance quickly flipped through the pages and discovered a strange symbol marked on one of the pages—exactly the same as the symbol drawn on the corpses.

“Yin Talisman Sutra, bl00d curse symbol… It seems this is not a simple murder.” Song Xuance murmured to himself as a complex picture began to form in his mind. The identities of the three deceased seemed to be more than just local officials and merchants, they appeared to be entangled with some kind of hidden power.

At this moment, hurried footsteps were heard from outside the door. Song Xuance looked up to see the constable Hu Ming rushing in with a beautifully dressed woman. The woman was veiled revealing only a pair of watery eyes her gaze deep as autumn water.

“Lord Song, this is Miss Lu, she says she is Xu Yuanwai’s… niece ” Hu Ming said with a troubled expression.

“Niece?” Song Xuance looked at the woman with skepticism “I have never heard that Xu Yuanwai had a niece in Chengping County. May I ask where you come from Miss?”

Lu Qianyi smiled slightly her voice as pleasant as a bell “Lord Song my father has been away for many years and I grew up at my uncle’s house rarely making an appearance. I came to pay my respects upon hearing of my uncle’s unfortunate demise.”