Fact1: Penal officer Pei Donglai and his superior investigate supervising builder, Fact2: Prince Li fails to recruit him into leading rebel army, Fact3: Pei takes Di and Jing to inspect charred corpses, Fact4: Donkey Wang is hiding in network of caverns called, Fact5: Di and Jing At are attacked by figure Phantom Bazaar
Output: In year 689 of the Tang Dynasty, Wu Zetian is to be crowned the first Empress in China despite opposition from Tang officials. She has a Buddha figure built overlooking her palace in Luoyang, but an official inspecting the progress mysteriously erupts into flames. Penal officer Pei Donglai and his superior investigate and interrogate the supervising builder, Shatuo, who was formerly imprisoned after he took part in a rebellion. They find nothing and Peis superior dies soon after erupting into flames. The Empress orders former detective and rebel Di Renjie be released from prison after the Imperial Abbot states that he must solve the mystery of the fire. She sends her attendant Shangguan Jinger to fetch Di from prison, where they are attacked by assassins. Wu reinstates Di as the royal detective and assigns Jinger to be both an assistant and spy. Jinger attempts to seduce Di, but is interrupted by assassins. Di meets Prince Li, who fails to recruit him into leading a rebel army. When Pei takes Di and Jinger to inspect the charred corpses, Di deduces the assassins use a poison that ignites upon contact with sunlight. Pei joins Di in his investigation. Di reunites with his friend Shatuo, who suspects the poison to be the venom of fire beetles. He points Di to Donkey Wang, who is hiding in a network of caverns called the Phantom Bazaar. Pei orders Shatuo arrested for not telling him of this before, but Di stops him. At the Phantom Bazaar, Di, Pei, and Jinger are attacked by a figure who seems to be the Imperial Abbot. After Jinger and Pei fight him, Pei pursues him to the Abbots forbidden residence. Donkey Wang reveals that he was the court physician and tried to use fire beetles as medicine. Finding their true danger, he disguised his appearance using acupoints and fled. Prince Li returns Dis mace to him, which was taken after he was imprisoned. Di maintains his political neutrality, and Li is assassinated soon after. Di suspects the Abbots involvement, but Wu warns him that he will be killed if attempts to enter the monastery. Pei finds the first inspector discovered something in his inspection and takes the diagrams, but he is taken captive. At the monastery, Di learns that the Imperial Abbot is Jinger disguised using acupoints. Di speculates that the Empress used the Imperial Abbot to justify her tyranny. Jinger attacks Di but is unable to kill him. She stumbles into several traps set by the assassins and is mortally wounded. Di fulfills her final request by sending her back to court, and she dies in the Empresss arms. Di finds Pei but is unable to save him. He directs Di to the diagrams, which implicate Shatuo, whom he confronts at the Buddha. Shatuo plans to kill the Empress by collapsing the Buddha upon the palace as revenge. He killed the officials after they noticed his changes to the Buddha and killed Prince Li for insulting him. He took the late Prince Lis army to invade and kill Wu if she survives. As Di and Shatuo fight, Di is drenched in poison. Di is able to divert the statue, and Shatuo heads to the coronation to poison Wu. Di catches up with Shatuo and spills it on him instead, causing him to burn to death in the sun. Di saves Wu from the collapsing statue and warns her of Prince Lis rebel army. The Empress promises to be a just ruler and to return power to the Tang Dynasty when her reign ends. Refusing Wus offer of a place in her court, Di resigns as inspector and retreats into the Phantom Bazaar, where he will struggle to live on with Donkey Wang and the incurable poison.