Sometimes the world was like a gigantic tree, every branch forking toward a different life. Withering and budding, destruction and rebirth—all happened upon the same tree, sometimes at the very same time.
Through the gaps between its crisscrossing branches, certain powerful beings gazed at the sky and called it—fate.
Ouyang Jie, Chief Director of the All-Under-Heaven Criminal Investigation Bureau, stood with one foot in the light of heaven and the other in Tianjing.
Bearing such an important post and overseeing public security in every quarter, he was bound to shoulder a great responsibility in the immense upheaval that would soon sweep through both court and country.
Thus, after Bolu and Gu Shiyi died in succession, he returned to Tianjing City ahead of time to hold the fort at Criminal Investigation Bureau headquarters.
The vast Tianjing City could broadly be divided into the outer city and the inner city. Within the inner city lay a core area known as the "Imperial City."
Sanqing Xuandu Supreme Palace was the absolute heart of the Imperial City. The various palace complexes spreading out around it together formed the Great Jing imperial palace. Add to that the residences of imperial clansmen, the estates of meritorious nobles, and the homes of the so-called "hundred officials of Tiandu," and there you had the makeup of Great Jing's Imperial City.
Tiandu Classics, whose every release was a classic, had originally begun as bedside reading for these high officials. Even when the lords read leisure books, they could not be like mud-legged peasants—they had to possess their own refined tastes. The Tiandu Press established on that foundation later raked in gold by the day, and Tiandu Classics swept All-Under-Heaven; that, too, was an amusing case of willows planted without intent casting shade.
The infamous Central Heavenly Prison lay directly