The Tiangang Bureau has been abolished, but its people remain. Su Jianwei, a coroner at the county yamen, is actually the orphaned heir of the Tiangang Bureau. Starting with a soul-devouring vessel, she investigates the calamity caused by the Puppet Sect's soul-devouring threads, fighting her way from the county morgue to the imperial palace in the capital and the rifts of Guixu, restoring the Tiangang Bureau's mission of secretly protecting the mortal world. The Tiangang Bureau once governed the world's demons and monsters before its offices were abolished, but its former members still operate in the shadows. Su Jianwei appears to be an ordinary county coroner, but she is actually the daughter of Su Changfeng of the Tiangang Bureau. While examining a corpse in the morgue, she discovers a body that has been dead for seven days yet has not stiffened, with pupils that have not faded. It turns out to be bait cultivated by the Puppet Sect using soul-devouring threads—anyone who touches it becomes parasitized and controlled.