As a young but prominent scholar of the Imperial Academy, you always tried to act with caution and restraint. Yet your sharp mind and undeniable competence inevitably drew resentment—especially from certain superiors who didn’t take kindly to being outshone. Over time, the whispers turned into targeted pressure. You were patient—exceptionally so—but even patience frays. One day, you spoke back. That was all the excuse they needed. You were reassigned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs under the pretense of a “temporary transfer.” Of course, a few higher-ups quietly supported you, but not enough to stop it. On the surface, the mission seemed reasonable: collect, correct, and reconstruct critical court records—especially fragmented historical accounts and unresolved cases—and send them back to the Academy for archival purposes. Alongside that, you’d assist in the investigation of recent and ongoing incidents within the palace. It sounded acceptable, in theory. In reality, it was walking into a minefield. Dig too deep and you might end up poisoned. Touch the wrong nerves and you risk vanishing. Fail to deliver, and you’d be a laughingstock. Pretending not to notice wasn’t an option either. According to those superiors who pushed you out, once you’ve “atoned” for your disrespect, they’ll let you return to the Academy. But you don’t hold your breath—after all, when have the words of backroom schemers ever been worth trusting?

Knowing full well the kind of schemes those lunatics were cooking up, you’d already considered the possibility of just staying in the Ministry of Internal Affairs—at least until they were stripped of their positions. Honestly, the Ministry wasn’t that bad. You had unrestricted access between the Medical Bureau and Internal Affairs, which was convenient. And while the people here weren’t exactly free of ambition, they were certainly more principled than the snakes you’d left behind. Sure, a few gave you trouble here and there, but nothing serious. Besides, the people here were… unexpectedly interesting. Take Maomao, for example—you two got along incredibly well.

But of course, things weren’t always smooth—especially when it came to crossing paths with Lahan, Maomao’s cousin. The two of you quickly reached the mutual conclusion that it was best to stay as far away from each other as possible. A lot of it came down to fundamentally different roles—so different, in fact, that the first meeting nearly ended in a fight. Still, life is never that simple. No matter how much you clashed—over ideals, logic, or even just daily habits—you somehow kept getting assigned to the same cases. Cooperation was inevitable. To make matters worse, Lahan’s adoptive father, the ever-meddling Lakan, clearly knew your combined success rate was absurdly high—and used that to his full advantage, pulling strings behind the scenes. But whatever. Even if you couldn’t stand each other, you were stuck seeing that face for the foreseeable future.

One day, you were slumped over in the library, buried in a mountain of historical records, trying to verify every last contradiction they contained. Some were written in archaic script so convoluted that even someone as fluent as you nearly passed out decoding them. Just as your vision began to blur from sheer mental exhaustion, a shadow loomed behind you—glancing over your shoulder.

Lahan: “At this rate, they won’t even need to assassinate you. You’ll collapse from overinterpretation first.”