In the shadowed corridors of power within the Daqi (大亓) Dynasty, a trail of corpses and poisoned silver weaves a web far more intricate than any sword fight. The Wanted Detective (定风波) pulls back the curtain, revealing a conspiracy born from Emperor Ningtai's desperate grasp at immortality. Phantom Soul Darts haunt Weizhou (威州), corpses vanish monthly, and a lethal hallucinogen called Crimson Crystal, brewed from human fat and blood, fuels both delusion and death. At the heart of it all stands Xiao Beiming (萧北冥), framed for murders he didn't commit, while the true specter, the elusive Night Phantom, manipulates events from the shadows. This is a tale where loyalties are illusions and the past demands a bloody reckoning.
Phantom Darts and Poisoned Silver
The trail begins with Huo Dairong (霍黛蓉) uncovering Chu Guangsha's (褚广厦) secret ledgers. Payments to the Huo family made sense; Chu owed his rise to General Huo. Payments routed specifically to Weizhou, however, defied explanation. Arriving in Weizhou, investigators immediately confront two grim realities: a persistent, unnerving pattern of corpse theft and monthly sightings of the dreaded Phantom Soul Darts transporting these stolen bodies. Lao Chouchong, a seasoned underworld figure, reveals the dark purpose: creating Crimson Crystal requires corpse oil and fresh human blood. Chu Guangsha's Weizhou funds clearly bankrolled this gruesome operation.
Yet Chu himself, like Huo Zongyao (霍宗耀) before him, ultimately died from Crimson Crystal poisoning. Why fund your own demise? The answer lies in Crimson Crystal's dual nature: small doses induce powerful hallucinations, not death. Chu Guangsha, wealthy but spiritually unmoored, craved transcendence. He likely invested believing the poison was an elixir to immortality, a tragic misstep fueled by desperate hope.
Framed by the Phantom
Xiao Beiming has long borne the blame for the Night Phantom's deeds, a scapegoat since the infamous Fengbo Lake (风波湖) incident. Refusing this fate, he spent three years doggedly hunting evidence to clear his name. His sharp intellect inevitably led him towards the truth, bringing him dangerously close to uncovering the secret of Sea Cliff. This proximity triggered a deadly response. Feng Qingzhuo (风清浊), a disciple of the Poison Cessation Valley who infiltrated the Divine Constabulary after being "rescued" by Zhong Xueman (钟雪漫), acted.
He deliberately supplied Zhong Xueman with a rare toxin to administer to Xiao Beiming. Feng Qingzhuo was no random recruit; like Qing Ying strategically placing herself as Huo Dairong's maid, Feng chose Zhong Xueman. His motives run deep: he is a surviving orphan of Sea Cliff. Crimson Crystal, the poison fueling the chaos, is a Sea Cliff formula. Decades prior, the dying Emperor Ningtai, craving immortality, became obsessed with its hallucinatory effects, mistaking them for divine transcendence. Consumed by selfishness and fearing rivals, he ordered the elite Wind Scouts to obliterate Sea Cliff. His delusion proved fatal within a year. The subsequent Emperor, shamed by his predecessor's atrocity, disbanded the Wind Scouts and purged all records of the massacre, burying the truth Xiao Beiman now threatens to unearth.
The Emperor's Blade, Not the Phantom
The Fengbo Lake killings presented a puzzle. Three of the four victims – Second Master Yin, Mei Baiyu, and Miao Jie – held knowledge of the Sea Cliff atrocity but were not perpetrators. They viewed Zhong Yunchi (钟云赤), who was involved in the massacre, with contempt. Zhong Yunchi silenced them not for revenge, but to protect the Emperor's secret. For the Daqi throne, stability outweighed justice for Sea Cliff. Zhong Yunchi served as the Emperor's ruthless enforcer.
The Emperor trusted Sea Cliff's actual killers to stay silent, bound by guilt. Outsiders privy to the secret, however, posed an unpredictable risk – a fear justified by the victims' unwillingness to keep the royal shame hidden. Crucially, the drama consistently emphasizes the Night Phantom is a Sea Cliff survivor. Zhong Yunchi, an architect of the massacre, cannot be the Phantom. The misleading connection stems from Zhu Yitie's (朱一铁) calculated hints. Zhu Yitie orchestrated the Fengbo Lake incident, framing Xiao Beiming, but he did not kill the three victims; Zhong Yunchi did. Regardless of any later remorse, Zhong Yunchi and the true Night Phantom, as a survivor of his crime, were destined to be mortal enemies.
The Phantom Unmasked
The final, chilling revelation strikes at the heart of the Divine Constabulary itself. Xiao Beiming, poisoned and pursuing shadows, never suspected the truth lurking beside Zhong Xueman. Feng Qingzhuo, the seemingly devoted constable, is the Night Phantom. His poisoning of Xiao Beiming was no accident; it was a deliberate act of sabotage, using Zhong Xueman's hand to eliminate the investigator getting too close to Sea Cliff's buried past and his own hidden identity. Feng Qingzhuo’s vengeance, meticulously planned from within the very institution tasked with upholding Daqi's law, exposes a rot deeper than any single corrupt official. The Emperor's desperate cover-up created the very ghost now haunting the dynasty.
