Episode 1 recap: Mu Qing returns to investigate the rumor of rebellion.
On September 21, 1898, Empress Dowager Cixi and others launched the Wuxu Coup, imprisoning Emperor Guangxu. The Hundred Days' Reform, which lasted a total of 103 days, ended in failure. On November 14, 1908, the day before Empress Dowager Cixi's death, Emperor Guangxu passed away at the age of 38. Twelve years after the failure of the Hundred Days' Reform, on March 26 of the third year of the Xuantong era, a stone tablet emerged from the Yongding River and reached outside Zhengyang Gate. The ancient seal characters on the tablet were traced, and the inscription read, "When the dragon trembles, the world will change."
This incident caused a sensation when it spread, and from a literal interpretation, it implied a change in leadership. Undoubtedly, it was a precursor to rebellion. Mu Qing, as the Grand Internal Supervisor, couldn't sit still. He speculated that someone might launch an uprising on the day of Mangzhong (the ninth solar term). Immediately, he dispatched personnel to investigate and learned that it was a rumor spread by someone while taking a walk. However, the mastermind behind it couldn't be identified. After careful consideration, Mu Qing concluded that someone was laying the groundwork for rebellion. He immediately ordered an investigation, focusing on everything related to the number nine, as Mangzhong ranked ninth among the twenty-four solar terms.
In a guesthouse in Dagutown, Tianjin, nine people were found dead. Upon receiving the news, the constable Wang Jialuo rushed to the scene to conduct an investigation. He discovered that most of the deceased had been poisoned. Inside a wardrobe, he found a survivor named Lin Jiajing. She claimed that the deceased were her uncle, aunt, and cousin. She had been studying in Japan and had just returned with them by ship yesterday. Today, they encountered this misfortune. While she was changing clothes this morning, she heard her cousin screaming outside, and her aunt shouting to run. In a panic, she hid in the wardrobe and narrowly escaped.
Based on the comprehensive analysis of the information, Wang Jialuo concluded that the culprit was both skilled in using poison and disguised as a member of another ethnicity. They must be the people from the Lengxi region. He immediately decided to pursue the murderers and vowed not to let them escape from his grasp. As expected, he soon caught up with the culprits, who turned out to be members of the Lengxi Rongtian Sword Sect. They didn't regard Wang Jialuo highly, but as soon as he made a move and took down one of them, they started to take him seriously. After a fierce fight, Wang Jialuo found himself outnumbered and resorted to feigning death, lying in the river to evade pursuit.
Mu Qing, the Grand Internal Supervisor, spent his days listening to information gathered from various places. Most of it was useless and gave him a headache. Then he thought of a person, a man known as Men San Dao, also called Yirgen Mu Qing (played by Qin Jun Jie). He was a former imperial guard of Emperor Guangxu and was implicated in the Wuxu Coup.
Mu Qing knew well of his investigative abilities and tempted him with freedom and the restoration of his official position, asking for his help in solving the case. Mu Qing decided to seize this opportunity to see the light of day again. In a gambling den, Chen Wu lost all his money. In desperation, he produced a pawn ticket, hoping to exchange it for 300 taels of silver. However, he was mocked by others because the pawn item was just a dogskin hat. Surprisingly, someone actually paid money to buy it, and that person was Zhuo Bu Fan (played by Liu Yu Ning), the newly appointed head of the Rongtian Sword Sect.
The mastermind behind the murder of the nine people who returned from Japan was Zhuo Bu Fan's eldest senior brother, Yu Huanjie. Zhuo Bu Fan was somewhat upset with their method of killing people using their sect's techniques. However, Yu Huanjie believed that extracting information was the most important, and he had already obtained information. The nine people who returned from Japan were scheduled to meet someone named Tan Xian in the Shanghai French Concession on the third day of the fourth month.
Yu Huanjie, as the eldest senior brother, harbored resentment towards Zhuo Bu Fan for not taking over as the sect's leader. Zhuo Bu Fan consistently showed restraint to avoid internal conflict within the Rongtian Sword Sect, but their master felt that he shouldn't be so accommodating. Mu Qing mentioned the secret of the Pure Altar Treasure. During the reign of Emperor Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, there was a man named Wang Zhi who was known as the "Five Peaks Boat Master." He had been involved in smuggling with the Japanese for many years and was incredibly wealthy. It is said that in the late Ming Dynasty, a secular disciple of the Southern Shaolin Temple discovered the hidden treasure left behind by Wang Zhi. However, during troubled times, the Southern Shaolin Temple sealed off the treasure. Later, this wealth came to be known as the "Pure Altar Treasure." After Mu Qing took office as the Grand Internal Supervisor, due to the empty state treasury, he had once considered pursuing the Pure Altar Treasure but gained nothing. However, after the rumor of "when the dragon trembles, the world will change" appeared, the treasure map unexpectedly went missing. He asked Mu Qing to investigate this matter.
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