The Consort's Fortune (Published)

Eleven years ago, in a world of ice and snow, five-year-old Leng Xiang crawled out from beneath her parents’ frozen bodies and clutched a passerby’s hem, begging, “Save me.” Eleven years later, she became known throughout the martial world as “Dark Fragrance,” a deadly beauty whose scent could steal the soul, and the stuff of countless people’s nightmares. Three years later, the gentle and elegant eldest daughter of the distinguished Su family in Yuanzhou made a grand entrance into married life, joining the household of the carefree Prince Xiaoyao, the emperor’s most favored and unconventional son. Showered with affection and surrounded by splendor, she slowly felt her frozen heart thaw. But an imperial decree revealed to the young woman, newly awakened to love, that Mu Ye had been promised to someone else long ago. Her status as his princess consort was nothing but a pretense. An unwanted marriage changed the fate she had written for herself, and for his sake, she carefully maneuvered through the palace. A bloody case, a prince’s rebellion, the return of the Four Great Assassins... Which is the real her: a noble young lady, Prince Xiaoyao’s consort, or a mysterious assassin? The hand Leng Xiang reached out all those years ago grasped a sliver of hope, but also set her on a bloodstained path. Can she change the fate she has made for herself? Can the blood-red life she composed with graceful, poetic strokes turn out differently? And as people and events from the past seep into the present, where will this Dark Fragrance go? Beneath the drifting fragrance, perhaps there is still a life ahead. How many secrets can be entrusted to the moon and the breeze?